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APPLETONS' POPULAR LIBRARY 

OF THE BEST AUTHORS. 



-•-•-^ 



LIFE AND MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

VOLUME I. 



Just published in this Series. 

LR'ES OF WELLIXGTOX AXD PEEL, from the London 
Times. 1 vol. 16mo. 50 cts. 

ESSAYS FROM THE LOXPOX TIMES. First Series. Con- 
tains — Lord Xelson and Lady Hamilton, Dean Swift, the 
French Revolution, Louis Philippe, &c. 1 vol. 16mo. 60 cts. 

ESSAYS FROM THE LOKDOX TIMES. Second Series. 
Contains — Papers on Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, Tenny- 
son, Grote, Nathaniel Hawthorne, etc. 1 vol. 16mo. 50 cts. 



LIFE AND MEMORIALS 



OF 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



FROM THE NEW-YORK DAILY TIMES. 



,9.. S,P..-f., 



VOLUME I. 



» 1 » 



NEW-YORK : 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 

1853. 



C-J^^ 









Enteeed according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by 

D. APPLETON & CO., 

in the Clerk's Ofl&ce of the District Court for the Southern District of 

New-York. 



• * ' 



PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. 



• • • 



The Personal Memorials which compose so large a 
portion of these volumes, are from the pen of Gen. 
S. P. Lyman, whose intimate and confidential rela- 
tions with Mr. Webster afford a sufficient guarantee 
for their authenticity. They are believed by the 
publishers to embrace a more copious collection of 
original and interesting memoranda, concerning the 
life and character of the great Statesman whose re- 
cent death has created so deep a sense of bereave- 
ment throughout the country, than has hitherto been 
given to the world. Some of these papers appeared 
some years since in the Commercial Advertiser and 
the Courier & Enquirer ; and were revised and great- 
ly extended for the Daily Times, from which they are 
now reprinted under the author's supervision. The 
biographical sketch is from the Times, in which it 



publishers' advertisement. 



appeared on the day after Mr. Webster's decease : the 
miscellaneous anecdotes in the sequel, all of which 
are of a striking character, and well worthy of pre- 
servation, are credited to their various sources. 

New- York, Dec. 1852. 



MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



-•-•-•- 



DANIEL WEBSTER, Secretary of State in 

THE GrOVERNMENT OF THE UnITED StATES, died On 

Sunday morning, October 24th, at 3 o'clock, sur- 
rounded by his family and friends, at his home in 
Marshfield. He had repaired thither, from the la- 
bors and cares of his official position at Washington, 
in consequence of failing health some weeks before ; 
but it was not until ten days before his decease, that 
his medical attendants pronounced his recovery hope- 
less. His last hours comported well with the calm 
dignity and the imposing grandeur of his character 
and his life. The summons of Death was heard with 
the same serenity, and obeyed with the same prompt 
submission, with which every call of Duty during his 
life had been answered and met. Thus has closed 
the most illustrious career which has yet graced the 
civil history of this Republic. It closed as was fit- 
ting, away from the anxieties and responsibilities of 
official place, in the midst of the sanctities and affec- 
tions of Home. That great light, from which ra- 
diance and warmth, and all strengthening influences, 
have so long been shed upon his country, has disap- 



6 MEMORIALS OF 



peared, not by any sudden eclipse of its meridian 
glory, but by the natural decline from its lofty course, 
in the full but mellowed radiance of its advanced 
hours. For the instruction and guidance which we 
have been accustomed to find in his presence and his 
public acts, the country must now recur to the re- 
cords of history, and to those matchless productions 
of his genius which he has bequeathed to the use and 
the care of the coming generations. 

A great English dramatist, in closing a preface 
to the collected works of two of his cotemporaries, 
one of whom was his intimate friend, pronounces at 
once a eulogy upon their character, and an interdict 
upon all who should attempt to hold it up to the ad- 
miration of the world, by declariDg that " he must be 
a bold man that dares undertake to write their lives." 
The exigencies of journalism leave little room to 
consult the proprieties which would deter even so 
consummate a genius as Shirley from writing the 
biographies of Beaumont and Fletcher. Fortu- 
nately, however, its aims are not so lofty as to render 
failure in the attempt to reach them, an offence be- 
yond the scope of charitable consideration. And al- 
though few men of modern times take higher rank 
than Daniel Webster among those " worthy person- 
ages that deserve better than dispersed report or 
barren eulogies," — and although he who shall give to 
the world an adequate and satisfactory account of that 
long and laborious life, which has just come to a 
close, will render a service to the country and the 
world, which even the high praise of Biography, by 
Lord Bacon, could not extol tdo niuoli. — the ambi- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



tion of the Journalist is simply to be useful in a 
smaller way, and to supply such general knowledge 
of the great deceased, as may awaken kindly recol- 
lections of what he has done, and thus meet the crav- 
ing which bereavement always creates in the human 
heart. We shall have accomplished, therefore, all 
we can hope to do, in the few hours that remain for 
such a task, if, in sketching the life and public ca- 
reer of Mr. Webster, we shall be found to have brought 
afresh to memory, and to have commended anew to 
grateful study, events reflecting honor upon the 
country, — acts evincing profound and intelligent pa- 
triotism, and sentiments which will find an echo in 
every heart, duly alive to the interests of the race, 
and studious of the means by which its civil well-be- 
ing can be best secured. 

Daniel Webster was born in the town of Salis- 
bury, New Hampshire, on the 18th of January, 1782. 
His age, at the period of his death, was accordingly 
seventy years, nine months, and six days. 

The ancestral line of the Webster family extended 
back, in authentic records, to the early part of the 
seventeenth century. Thomas Webster, born in 
1632, was the great-great-grandfather of Daniel. 
He emigrated to this country from Norfolk, England, 
in the year 1656, and settled at Hampton, in New 
Hampshire, where, soon after his arrival, he was 
united in marriage to Sarah Brewer, by whom he had 
five sons and three daughters. Ebenezer, his second 
son, was born in 1667, and was married to Hannah 
Judkins in July, 1709. Of his sons, only one had 
issue. This was Ebenezer. grandfather of Daniel 



8 MEMORIALS OF 



wlio was married to Susannah Batclielder in 1738, 
and had eight children, of whom the oldest was Ebe- 
nezer, the father of the great statesman. 

Ebenezer Webster was born in Kingston, New 
Hampshire, on the 22d of April, 1739. The settle- 
ment was then new, and Ebenezer's father was a dili- 
gent and persevering farmer. The son, an active 
youth, was early chosen as one of the famous '• Ran- 
gers" of Major Robert Rogers, and served with that 
distinguished officer, under Lord Amherst, in the 
French war of 1 763. The Rangers were kept in the 
pay of the Crown during the continuance of the war. 
Mr. Webster was one of the party which, under the 
command of Major Rogers, made an expedition to 
Crown Point for the purpose of chastising the In- 
dians and destroying their villages — an act which was 
deemed essential to the preservation of the whites. 
The Rangers were always on active duty, and proved 
most efficient allies. The history of their trials and 
their triumphs has never been fully told. At the con- 
clusion of the peace, Mr. Webster, taking advantage 
of the moment of quiet which was affi^rded him, com- 
menced a settlement, in company with several others, 
in a border-town on a branch of the Merrimack 
River. The place was first known as Bakerstown, 
but was afterward called Salisbury — a name that will 
endure as long as the history of its greatest son shall 
be remembered and cherished among the proudest 
ornaments of the country. Mr. Webster had just 
commenced the necessary preparations for a comfort- 
able rural residence, when the Revolutionary struggle 
began. His former reputation as one of the body of 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



Rangers served to direct the eyes of his neighbors 
toward him, and his services were soon in active re- 
qiiest as the leader in the constitution of their mili- 
tary bands. It is needless to say that the veteran 
Ranger entered, heart and soul, into that long and 
dubious contest. Foremost among the brave defend- 
ers of the nation, and skilful, brave and experienced, 
the weight of Mr. Webster's talents was speedily 
manifested in the consistent ardor with which the 
battle was maintained. Mr. Webster commanded a 
volunteer company of his friends and neighbors, un- 
der General Stark, in the fight at Bennington, and, 
during the engagement, was seen in the thickest of 
the fray. It had been given out by Stark, some time 
previous to the battle, that it was his intention to 
march to Stillwater, and a detachment of the British, 
one thousand strong, was consequently sent to inter- 
cept him. The forces of the enemy having been thus 
divided and weakened, the American general was 
enabled to cope with them in detail. Col. Warner 
was stationed in the rear of the American army, with 
a reserved corps, while Captain Webster was ordered 
to advance with his company of one hundred men, in 
search of two hundred more, who were out upon a 
scout. The companies once united, Captain Web- 
ster was to assume the command of the whole, and 
fall upon the enemy on the rear, but on no account to 
fire, until the action had commenced on the other 
side. It was on this memorable occasion that Gen- 
eral Stark uttered the celebrated words : " Fellow- 
soldiers ! there is the enemy : if we don't take them, 
Molly Stark will be a widow to-night !" Captain 
1* 



10 MEMORIALS OF 



Webster having fulfilled the duty assigned him in 
collecting together the three hundred men, awaited 
his share in the honors of the day. When allowed 
to make his charge upon the enemy, with pieces 
loaded, and with firm and equal step, his men ad- 
vanced upon the opposing breastworks. Captain 
Webster was the first to leap the defences, but the 
reinforcements were not sufficient to render the attack 
successful, and his command was driven back. 
Meantime, the British were strengthened by the 
arrival of one thousand fresh troops upon the field, 
and a new disposition of the battle became necessary. 
General Stark placed Captain Webster and Captain 
Gregg on the left wing of the American force, Colo- 
nel Nichols on the right, and placed the army in a 
strong position. The result of that struggle is a 
matter of history, and a large proportion of its fame 
is due to the efi'orts of Ebenezer Webster. At the 
battle of White Plains, Mr. Webster was also pre- 
sent, and performed effective service. At the end of 
the war, he again retired to private life, and sought 
to end his days peacefully and with ho'nor, as an 
humble cultivator of the soil. This, however, was 
denied him. The people whom he had served had 
stronger claims upon him. He was, for several years, 
elected a Representative from Salisbury to the Legis- 
lature of New Hampshire, and in the years 1785-6-8 
and '90 filled the office of State Senator. In 1785 
he was appointed Colonel of tlie Militia. In 1791 
he was chosen as Judge of the Court of Common 
Pleas, for the county of Hillsborough, which office he 
held until 1805. On the 22d of April of the follow- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. H 



ing year (ISOG), Col. Webster died upon his farm, at 
the age of 67. His wife, Abigail, survived him ten 
years, and died on the 14th of April, 1816, aged 76 
years. 

Col. Webster was twice married. His second 
wife, Abigail Eastman, the mother of Daniel and 
Ezekiel, was a lady of Welsh descent, and a resident 
of Salisbury at the time of her marriage. 

Daniel Webster was born under the influence of 
true New England institutions. A harsh and rug- 
ged countr}^, cold blasts and meagre natural advan- 
tages, formed no pleasant introductions to the world. 
The hills and forests of the Granite State offered 
few inducements, years ago, for the development of 
intellectual versatility and strength. It was the aim 
of her people to impart to their children the soundest 
principles of morality and common sense. Few in- 
dulgences were allowed them, and the sacredness of 
parental control was strictly guarded. In the midst 
of such a public sentiment was Daniel Webster 
reared. He enjoyed what is termed a good New 
England education, receiving the fullest advantages 
of the school system of that day — not, as now, brought 
home to every door, but occasional and migratory in 
its nature. 

While still young. Daniel was daily sent two miles 
and a half to school, in the middle of winter, and on 
foot. He walked the entire distance there and back. 
If the school chanced to remove still further from his 
father's house, board was engaged in some convenient 
family for the youthful student, and his acquisitions 
of knowledge were pursued without interruption. An 



12 MEMORIALS OF 



ardent desire for learning was early manifest in the 
mind of Daniel Webster. Difficulties were presented, 
with which he was compelled to struggle ; hindrances 
stood in the way, which he was obliged to overcome. 
But every obstacle was surmounted, and the scholar 
came forth a man. His father was deeply impressed 
with the necessity of education, and spared no pains 
to give Daniel a thorough insight into the mysteries 
of knowledge. Among the few volumes contained in 
the circulating library of that day, the young Daniel 
found a special fascination in a copy of the " Spec- 
tator " — particularly in the criticisms upon " Chevy 
Chase." Before he was fourteen years old, he could 
repeat the whole of the " Essay on Man." The muse 
possessed great attractions for his fancy, and devo- 
tional hymns were frequently added to the list of his 
juvenile accomplishments. Among the pieces com- 
mitted to memory, as a pastime merely, was the en- 
tire volume of that ancient collection of church melo- 
dies known as '• Watts's Psalms and Hymns." 

In his fourteenth year, Daniel was placed in Phil- 
lips' Academy at Exeter, N. H., at that time under 
the care of Dr. Benjamin Abbot. This event, his 
first separation from home and friends, took place on 
the 25th April, 1796. Daniel was now one among 
ninety boys, all of whom were perfect strangers, lle- 
conciling himself, however, to the necessities of the 
case, Daniel soon became naturalized among his new 
associates, and made rapid progress in the customary 
routine of academical studies. Public declamation, 
curiously enough, was his aversion, and the thought 
of it a bugbear. The future orator withdrew from 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 13 



observation, and sought to conceal himself behind his 
fellows. Remaining but a few months at the aca- 
demy, Daniel, in February, 1797, was placed under 
the tuition of Rev. Samuel Woods, at Boscawen. The 
prospect of a collegiate education was at this time 
first opened to him by his father. Incited by the 
indications of this preferment, colleges being then 
exclusive, and not in every case attainable, the young 
man profited by the opportunities that were offered 
him. With Mr. Woods he read Virgil and Cicero. 
and became a fair Latin scholar. His favorite clas- 
sic at this time was Cicero, and the strength of early 
impressions was never abated — the immortal Orator 
was always the favorite study of the American Sage. 
In the summer of 1797, Daniel entered Dart- 
mouth College as a Freshman. The regular duties of 
a student were performed by him with faithfulness 
and energy. He lost no time in idle dissipations, 
became noted for a constant avidity for reading, and 
devoted much attention to the acquisition of a know- 
ledge of English literature. Among his college pas- 
times he superintended the publication of a small 
weekly newspaper, to which he contributed various 
selections, and occasionally an original essay. These 
early efforts in composition are probably the first of 
his writings that were ever published. Graduating 
with the approbation of his fellows, and in receipt of 
the honorable testimonials of merit, though not dis- 
playing any remarkable powers which would seem to 
indicate his future greatness, Daniel returned home, 
determined to adopt the profession of the law for a 
livelihood. 



14 MEMORIALS OF 



A course of legal reading was begun under the 
eye of Mr. Thompson, a gentleman well known to the 
family of Mr. Webster, and afterward United States 
Senator. Daniel's studies were not, however, suffered 
to be prolonged without interruption. Anxious that 
his brother Ezekiel should possess advantages for 
education similar to those enjoyed by himself, Daniel 
interceded with his father with such success that the 
brother, in 1801, was sent to college. To meet the 
additional expenses which this circumstance involved, 
Daniel temporarily forsook the law and commenced 
teaching school, as much to advance his brother as to 
cover the necessary expenditures in the prosecution 
of his own profession. The pedagogue was first made 
manifest in the town of Fryeburg, in Maine, where 
Daniel taught the town Academy, at the meagre sti- 
pend of $350. Of this amount, he contrived to save 
the whole, having obtained the post of Assistant to 
the Register of Deeds of the County, by which he 
met the ordinary outlays of his position. In Frye- 
burg, Mr. Webster found another circulating library, 
in which was contained a set of Blackstone's Com- 
mentaries, the legal food of the young student during 
his stay in that place. 

In September, 1802, Daniel returned to Salisbury, 
and resumed the study of the law with Mr. Thomp- 
son. When not so engaged, his time was occupied 
with the Latin Classics. He read with avidity the 
tomes of Sallust, Caesar and Horace. Some odes of 
the latter were translated by him and published. The 
sports of angling, gunning and horsemanship consti- 
tuted his pastimes. The meditative pursuit of old 



DAN1P:L WEBSTER. 15 



Izaak was always a favorite amusement of the great 
statesman. With fishing-rod and line he would wait 
for hours beside some tranquil stream, watching the 
play of the suspicious tribe, and moralizing, like his 
piscatorian model, upon the ways and doings of fishes 
and of men. Indeed, it is sportively said by his 
friends, that, as the future orator one day drew in a 
large and most tempting trout, he uttered the words 
which he afterwards employed on the Bunker-Hill 
Address : " Venerable men ! you have come down to 
us from a former generation. Heaven has boun- 
teously lengthened out your lives that you might be- 
hold this joyous day." The tale is probably a jest; 
but the words are immortal. In this way, Mr. Web- 
ster was ever in the habit of planning speeches and 
pursuing some other avocation at one and the same 

moment. 

In July, 1804, Daniel removed to Boston, where 
his course of law-reading went forward under the eye 
of Hon. Christopher Gore, afterward Governor of 
Massachusetts. The most ample opportunities were 
here enjoyed for a complete legal education, and 
Daniel so far improved them that in the following 
year (March, 1805), he was admitted to practise in 
the Suffolk Court of Common Pleas. According to 
the custom of those days, the pupil was accompanied 
into Court by his patron. To the kind exertions of 
Governor Gore in his behalf, on this occasion, Mr. 
Webster acknowledged his great indebtedness. The 
introduction insured him respect and attention, and 
he was not long in stepping into a lucrative profes- 
sional business. It is worthy of remark, as an evi- 



16 MEMORIALS OF 



dence of the superior discernment of his legal guar- 
dian, that, in the introductory address, Governor Grore 
took the pains to utter a prophecy of the future ce- 
lebrity of the young aspirant. Mr. Webster began 
practice in the village of Boscawen, whence he re- 
moved to Portsmouth, N. H., in 1807. 

* About this time an event occurred which was 
nearly a crisis in the young man's history. The 
clerkship of the County Court of Common Pleas in 
Hillsborough, New Hampshire, became vacant, and 
Judge Webster being at the time upon the bench, 
his colleagues tendered the vacant post to Daniel, as 
a mark of respect to his father. Daniel was not at 
all in favor of the proposition. His friend, Governor 
Gore, strongly discouraged his acceptance of the of- 
fice. '^ Once a clerk, always a clerk," was the argu- 
ment of that gentleman. Daniel, too, saw reasons 
why he should not accept. But he knew his father's 
heart was bent upon it, and, fearing to refuse, he 
'started homeward. In conversation with his father, 
he finally expressed his determination to decline. 
Judge Webster was for a moment incensed. Daniel 
replied that " he meant to use his tongue in the courts, 
not the pen ; to be an actor, not the register of other 
men's actions." His father answered him with pride, 
" His mother," he observed, " had always said that 
Daniel would come to something or nothing, she was 
not sure which ; he thought the doubt was about to 
be settled." So the clerkship went its ways, and 
Daniel reconciled to his father, and satisfied with his 
own course, went back to his practice. Judge Web- 
ster lived but a year afterward, but his life was long 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 17 



enough to enable him to hear his son's first argument, 
and to be gratified at the fulfihnent of the promising 
predictions that had been circulated regarding him. 
He died in April, 1806. 

In May, 1807, Daniel, whom we shall now desig- 
nate by the more dignified appellation of Mr. Web- 
ster, was admitted to practice as attorney and coun- 
sellor of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, and 
in September of the same year relinquished his ofiice 
to his brother Ezekiel, who had then obtained admis- 
sion to the Bar. Daniel then removed to Ports- 
mouth. It may here be proper to say, that Mr, 
Webster always espoused with warmth the cause of 
Ezekiel, his only brother. A man of strong, native 
powers, though slow to action, Ezekiel only lacked 
opportunity and a longer life to have become a dis- 
tinguished personage. He died in the prime of life, 
while arguing a cause in Concord, New Hampshire, 
and was lamented by a large class of friends and 
mourning relatives. 

Daniel Webster was married in June, 1808, to 
Grace Fletcher, daughter of Rev. Mr. Fletcher, of 
Hopkinton, New Hampshire. They had four chil- 
dren — Grace, Fletcher, Julia, and Edward — of whom 
only Fletcher now survives. Grace died early ; Ed- 
ward was killed in the Mexican War ; Julia married 
one of the Appletons, of Boston, and died a few years 
since. 

Mr. Webster resided in Portsmouth for a period 
of nine years. The Bar of that time presented a roll 
of brilliant names. Samuel Dexter and Joseph Sto- 
ry, of Massachusetts, William K. Atkinson, Attorney- 



18 MEMORIALS OF 



General of New Hampshire, Judge Jeremiah Smith, 
Jeremiah Mason, and men of like calibre, were the 
leading practitioners of the law. With them was 
sustained a pleasant and profitable intercourse, and 
the friendship which they extended to Mr. Webster 
was no small assistance to the efforts of the new aspi- 
rant for legal honors. Mr. Webster's practice here was 
chiefly circuit. He followed the Superior Court into 
many of the Counties of the State, and was retain- 
ed in most of the important causes upon the docket. 
Office he never held in New Hampshire, and his private 
professional practice was not remarkably lucrative. 
It has been remarked, as a circumstance somewhat 
singular, that in very few cases was Mr. Webster em- 
ployed as junior counsel. Scarcely a dozen instances 
of this kind occurred during his long career. Men 
had occasion for his services as their leading counsel, 
and reposed in him the utmost confidence — a reliance 
which was never misplaced or regretted, and to which 
many will now turn with a grateful recollection of the 
value of his aid. 

Soon after the Declaration of War against Eng- 
land, Mr. Webster was called to enter the arena of 
public life. Though but thirty years of age, an early 
period to take part in the Councils of a Nation — the 
native strength of Mr. Webster's character had al- 
ready pointed him out as the man that was needed 
for the times ; and the undeveloped Statesman made 
his first step in that long career of public life which 
has identified his name, as Representative, Senator. 
Diplomatist, and Cabinet Minister, with the history 
of the United States. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 19 



MR. WEBSTER IN CONGRESS. 

The political contest which resulted in the elec- 
tion of Mr. Webster to the House of Representatives, 
was long and spirited. A vehement opposition was 
started against the party which he represented, and 
although his ultimate triumph was gratifying in the 
extreme, the struggle was severe. Mr. Webster 
finally received a very handsome majority over his 
opponent, and took his seat at the Extra Session of 
the Thirteenth Congress, in May, 1813. The time 
at which he entered Congress was one of great excite- 
ment. The question of the prosecution of the War 
was warmly agitated, and raised divisions of party 
opinion, that threatened serious difficulties. The 
wisdom of retorting by severe retaliatory measures, 
against the arbitrary acts of Great Britain, respect- 
ing American shipping, was doubted by many mem- 
bers of that Congress. The conviction of the neces- 
sity of the conflict was not general throughout the 
country. Men objected that the War had been be- 
gun by a faction, that it was non-essential in princi- 
ple, and that it needed not to be prosecuted with any 
extraordinary degree of ardor. Into the midst of 
this caldron of differing opinions, Mr. Webster was 
thrown by his constituents. He was equal to the 
emergency in which he found himself plunged. That 
Congress comprised men of surpassing talent. Of 
the House, Henry Clay was Speaker. Among the 
members were Calhoun, Forsyth, Grrundy, Gaston, 
Pickering. Intellect and learning shed a lustre over 



20 MEMORIALS OF 



the Lower House, which it has rarely witnessed since. 
Mr. Webster made his appearance punctually at the 
commencement of the Session, and was immediately 
placed by Mr. Clay upon the Committee of Foreign 
Affairs, a position of honor and responsibility. 

Mr. Webster delivered his maiden speech in the 
House on Thursday, 10th June, 1813. It took Con- 
gress by surprise. A young man, appearing for the 
first time in public life, and previously unknown in po- 
litical circles, had made a sudden and indelible impres- 
sion upon older and more experienced men. The re- 
sult has proved that the early promise was not falla- 
cious. Intellect sharpened and strengthened by con- 
tinual exercise, especially in courts of law, and under 
the excitement of vehement opposition, is pretty 
sure to receive a rapid and healthy development. 
Mr. Webster founded his speech upon certain resolu- 
tions which he introduced in relation to the Berlin 
and Milan Decrees, requesting the President " to in- 
form the House when, by whom, and in what man- 
ner, the first intelligence was given to this Grovern- 
ment of the decree of the Government of France, 
bearing date the 28th of April, 1811, and purporting 
to be a definitive repeal of the Decrees of Berlin and 
Milan." The resolutions were supported by Mr. 
Webster, in a speech of masterly power and vigor, 
producing facts and arguments, which could do no 
less than rivet the attention of the House. The ob- 
ject of Mr. Webster was merely to obtain informa- 
tion, which was freely communicated by President 
Madi.son. The action of Napoleon in regard to the 
maritime questions of tiie day was productive of such 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 21 



measure of retaliation from England, that great danger 
was experienced by the neutral powers which had 
vessels upon the ocean. Great Britain then insisting 
upon her right of search in vessels belonging to the 
United States, the pent-up passions found vent, and 
the mother country and her daughter were again em- 
broiled in war. Mr. Webster entered Congress, not at 
the commencement of this second struggle, but in 
the heat of its progress. War was raging when he 
took his seat. The minutiae of the preparations for 
its continuance, were allotted to him as one of the 
National Council. Although opposed to the policy 
which had been adopted, he offered no very serious 
opposition to the prosecution of the war, and content- 
ed himself with seeking to guide the strong current into 
channels which appeared safest and most expedient. 
He had always believed that the most efficient method 
of crippling the power of England, was to attack her 
upon the sea, and hence, at an early period, he advo- 
cated the improvement of the Navy. Before the com- 
mencement of the War, or his entrance into Con- 
gress, he had written several powerful arguments fa- 
voring an increase of our naval force, and one of his 
earliest speeches in the House was intended to accom- 
plish the same purpose. Other topics of national in- 
terest and importance also occupied his attention while 
he continued a member of the House. On the repeal 
of the Embargo, and on an appeal from the Chair on 
a motion for the previous question, he spoke strongly 
and with effect. His standing as an orator was 
speedily attained. It never degenerated into a se- 
condary quality, and the part assumed by him in 



22 MEMORIALS OF 



his earliest public efforts was such as few men so 
young have sustained. Of the speeches of Mr. Web- 
ster on the Embargo and on the appeal, Mr. Everett 
holds the following language : ''His speeches on 
these questions raised him to the front rank of debat- 
ers. He manifested upon his entrance into pub- 
lic life, that variety of knowledge, familiarity with 
the history and traditions of the Government, and 
self-possession on the floor, which in most cases are 
acquired by time and long experience. They gained 
for him the reputation indicated by the well-known 
remark of Mr. Lowndes, that ' the North had not his 
equal, nor the South his superior.' " 

Mr. Webster was re-elected to the House of Re- 
presentatives in August, 1814. His constituents, 
pleased that New Hampshire could send so creditable 
a representative, and justly proud of the honorable 
position attained in so brief a period by Mr. Webster, 
again gave him the preference, and he received, for 
the second time, a handsome majority. When he 
again entered upon the discharge of his public duties, 
Mr. Webster found himself in a new position. The 
Peace was declared in December, 1814, and Congress 
had time to give its attention to the internal affairs 
of the country. The debates no longer turned upon 
the budget of War. The commercial class and the 
mass of the people were now to receive attention, and 
their wants were to be canvassed and supplied. Gov- 
ernment found it convenient to propose the establish- 
ment of a National Bank, and a bill for that purpose 
was introduced into the House, on the recommendation 
of Mr. Dallas, then Secretary of the Treasury. The 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 23 



elicited a splendid display of forensic ability from 
arose. It required the reservation of a Bank capital 
of fifty millions of dollars ; of which only five millions 
were to be in specie, and the remainder in the de- 
preciated Grovernment securities ; with an obligation 
to lend thirty millions for the use of the Treasury. 
With these provisions, the bill had passed the Senate, 
and was sent to the House. It was warmly discussed. 
Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster were among its oppo- 
nents. Mr. Webster deemed the project useless and 
pernicious. He denounced it as a mere paper-money 
contrivance, which was calculated to injure the People, 
to increase the financial embarrassments of the 
Government, and to bring discredit upon the Country. 
The bill, as originally reported, was finally negatived. 
A reconsideration was then moved, and the bill was 
amended in several important particulars. A specie- 
paying Bank was planned, and received the support 
of Mr. Webster and those who had opposed so stren- 
uously the original draft. In its improved shape the 
bill passed, and was sent to the President for approval, 
but Mr. Madison returned it to the House with his 
objections, and the subject went over for that session. 
The adjournment of Congress left Mr. Webster 
at liberty to resume his professional occupations, and 
enabled him to pay that degree of attention to his 
personal affairs of which they had stood in need during 
liis long absence from home. In the month of January, 
1814, he had sustained a heavy loss in the destruction 
of his house at Portsmouth by the great fire which 
visited that place. Not remarkably rich in the goods 
of this world at that period, Mr. Webster's finances 



24 MEMORIALS OF 



bill contained provisions to which great opposition 
suffered a serious blow by this disaster, and he began 
to agitate the question of removing his family either 
to Albany or Boston. This removal was effected in 
August, 1816. Mr. Webster was well known in 
Boston as a citizen and a professional man. He 
was certain of a warm welcome among old friends, 
and saw many reasons why he should return to 
the field in which he first stepped forward. His 
practice in the Courts of New Hampshire was 
never resumed, excepting in the celebrated case of 
Dartmouth College, tried in September, 1817. This 
cause involved Constitutional questions, and en- 
gaged the attention of Mr. Webster for a consider- 
able period. The Legislature of New Hampshire 
had passed certain acts purporting to enlarge and 
improve the Corporation of the College and to 
amend its Charter. The trial was to test the ques- 
tion whether such acts could be binding upon the 
Corporation, without its consent. Mr. Webster es- 
pousing the cause of the Corporation, argued with 
his usual ability upon the unconstitutionality of the 
action of the Legislature. Upon an adverse opinion 
of the New Hampshire Court being rendered, a writ 
of error was sued out by the Corporation, and the 
cause was removed to the Supreme Court of the 
United States. The argument took place, before all 
the Judges, in March 1818; Mr. Webster and Mr. 
Hopkinson appearing for the plaintiffs in error, and 
Mr. Holmes and the Attorney-General of New 
Hampshire in opposition. The question involved in 
the case was new to American Jurisprudence, and 



DANIEL \yEBSTER. 25 



the ojDposing counsel. The argument of Mr. Webster 
served to place the matter in its true light, and Judge 
Story at last coincided with his colleagues in declar- 
ing the acts of the Legislature invalid, and revers- 
ing the decision of the Superior Court of New-Hamp- 
shire. 

When Mr. Webster removed to Boston, he had 
one session to serve in Congress as Kepresentative 
from New-Hampshire. The proceedings of that ses- 
sion were unimportant. At its close, he retired to 
his practice in Boston, where for two years he was 
permitted to repose, in the exercise of the duties of 
private life. He was not, however, allowed any lon- 
ger respite. He was soon urged by friends and poli- 
tical admirers to become a candidate for Congress for 
the third time ; but he steadfastly declined the offer. 
An offer of election to the Senate of the United 
States was tendered him by his friends in the Legis- 
lature ; but this was also declined. Devoted to his 
profession, he had no wish to draw himself from it. 
Earning a competency by his legal attainments, he 
desired no honors other than those which attached to 
a good citizen and an honest man. The community 
insisted more strongly upon pressing him again into 
the public service. He served for a short time in the 
Legislature, was chosen one of the Presidential 
Electors of Massachusetts in the canvass which result- 
ed in the re-election of Mr. Monroe, and was a dele- 
gate to the Convention called to revise the Constitu- 
tion of the Commonwealth in 1821. Li that Con- 
vention, Mr. Webster took a prominent part, — con- 
stitutional argument having become his forte. His 



26 MEMORIALS OF 



princiiDal arguments were devoted to the subjects of 
oaths of office, the division of the State into Senato- 
rial Districts, and the appointment of Judicial officers 
bj the Executive. 

In the Fall of 1822, after the most pressing soli- 
citation, Mr. Webster yielded his consent to run 
again for Congress. A committee, consisting of Col. 
Thomas H. Perkins, Wm. Sturgis, Wra. Sullivan, 
John T. Apthorp, and Daniel Messenger, called upon 
him to apprise him of his nomination. He did not 
now decline. He was elected by one thousand majo- 
rity over his competitor, Jesse Putnam, and again 
took his seat in the House, not as a Member from a 
rural district in New-Hampshire, — but a Representa- 
tive from the City of Boston. Henry Clay was again 
Speaker. Familiar faces greeted the vision of the 
Massachusetts Representative, and earnest discussions 
presently gave active employment to Mr. Webster's 
busy mind. 

Early in the session, the subject of the Revolu- 
tion in Greece came before the House. Mr. Webster 
on the 8th of December, 1823, presented the follow- 
ing resolution : " That provision ought to be made by 
law, for defraying the expense incident to the ap- 
pointment of an Agent or Commissioner to Greece, 
whenever the President shall deem it expedient to 
make such appointment." 

In his famous speech in support of this resolution, 
Mr. Webster showed himself a profound and discrim- 
inating judge of the laws that govern the relations of 
nations and communities. In sympathy for the op- 
pressed and struggling Greeks, he was not surpassed 



DANIEL WEBSTEK. 27 



by any of the men of his time. He evinced a ready 
appreciation of the evils with which they struggled, 
and uttered a trumpet-toned and indignant remon- 
strance against the tyranny which sought their degra- 
dation. The '• Greek speech" will be remembered as 
long as American Oratory has a place among the re- 
cords of History. 

It is interesting to notice that the principles 
which were avowed on this occasion, were subse- 
quently re-affirmed by Mr. Webster in language still 
more striking, applied to the affairs of Hungary. On 
the occasion of the Congressional Banquet to Kos- 
suth in January last, Mr. Webster declared that " in 
the sentiments avowed by him in the years 1823 and 
1824, in the cause of Greece, there loas that tvhich 
he coidd never inirt from without dej)artmg from 
himself'' Those sentiments were most fearlessly 
put forth. On the 19th January, 1823, Mr. Webster 
made a long and eloquent argument, covering the 
whole question. Reviewing the circumstances which 
accompanied the struggles of the Greeks, and pass- 
ing some severe strictures upon the policy observed 
by the states of Europe towards that unhappy coun- 
try, Mr. Webster proceeded to a statement of the 
effects and consequences of the actions of Europear 
potentates in regard to free governments and the 
spread of republican institutions. The limits of this 
sketch permit no detailed analysis of the line of argu- 
ment laid down by Mr. Webster, in this celebrated 
speech, nor is it necessary. The leading idea was 
the defence of free institutions against absolutism ; 
an argument in favor of constitutional rights against 



28 MEMOHIALS OF 



the encroachments of despotism. In regarding the 
position proper to be assumed by this countr}^, in 
reference to the Greek struggle, Mr. Webster gave 
utterance to one of the finest passages which the lan- 
guage has produced. He sought to discourage any 
violent and belligerent measures, and fell back upon 
the power of public opinion. In arguing this point, 
he said : 

" Sir, this reasoning mistakes the age. The time 
has been, indeed, when fleets, and armies, and subsidies 
were the principal reliances, even in the best cause. 
But, happily for mankind, there has arrived a great 
change in this respect. Moral causes come into con- 
sideration in proportion as the progress of knowledge 
is advanced; and the intbl'ic opinioji of the civilized 
world is rapidly gaining an ascendency over mere 
brutal force. It may be silenced by military power, 
but it cannot be conquered. It is elastic, irrepressi- 
ble, and invulnerable to the weapons of ordinary war- 
fare. It is that impassable, inextinguishable enemy 
of mere violence and arbitrary rule, which, like Mil- 
ton's angelsj 



' Vital ill ever}' part, 
Cannot, but by anuihilatinjr, die.' 

Unless this be propitiated or satisfied, it is in vain 
for power to talk either of triumphs or repose. No 
matter what fields are desolated, what fortresses sur- 
rendered, what armies subdued, or what provinces 
overrun, there is an enemy that still exists to check 
the glory of these triumphs. It follows the con- 
Cjueror back to the very scene of his ovations ; it 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 29 



calls upon liim to take notice that the world, though 
silent, is yet indignant ; it shows him that the sceptre 
of his victory is a barren sceptre ; that it shall confer 
neither joy nor honor, but shall moulder to dry ashes 
in his grasp. In the midst of his exultation, it 
pierces his ear with the cry of injured justice ; it de- 
nounces against him the indignation of an enlight- 
ened and civilized age ; it turns to bitterness the cup 
of his rejoicing, and wounds him with the sting which 
belongs to the consciousness of having outraged the 
opinion of mankind." 

In the course of this speech, Mr. Webster advert- 
ed, in terms of reprobation, to the Treaty of Paris, 
of 1815, by which the principles that bound together 
the •• Holy Alliance" were asserted and maintained. 
He expressed his abhorrence of the doctrines thus 
sought to be enforced by European despotisms, and 
remarked : " Human liberty may yet, perhaps, be 
obliged to repose its principal hopes on the intelli- 
gence and the vigor of the Saxon race. So far as 
depends on us, at least, I trust those hopes will not 
be disappointed." 

Mr. Webster also took an active part in the dis- 
cussions upon the Tariff in 1824. In common with 
the remainder of the Massachusetts delegation, he op- 
posed that instrument on grounds of expediency, but 
the bill was passed and became a law. 

In the Fall of 1824, Mr. Webster was reelected 
to Congress, by the almost unanimous vote of 4,990 
out of 5000. This remarkable indication of the 
public favor was as unexpected as well-merited and 
gratifying. Mr. Webster was now fairly settled in a 



30 MEMORIALS OF 



public career, and he was thenceforward but rarely 
absent from stations of trust and confidence. 

The Presidential contest in w^hich John Quincy 
Adams was finally successful, now agitated the coun- 
try. Mr. Clay accepted the post of Secretary of 
State. The principal topic of this Administration 
was the Panama Mission, a subject of dispute, which 
created a great sensation, and elicited many warm 
debates in Congress. Mr. Webster had supported 
with earnestness, the noted Declaration of Presi- 
dent Monroe, — that any combinations of European 
powers to promote certain objects in America would 
be considered as directly afi'ecting the Nation. — and, 
in accordance with the position he had assumed, gave 
a cordial support to the proposed Mission to Panama, 
for the settlement of existing difficulties. He made 
an able speech on this subject in the House, in April, 
1826. The general unpopularity of the measure in 
contemplation, however, caused it to fail. 

On the 22d December, 1820, at the second Cen- 
tennial Celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth, Mr. Webster delivered the grand Oration 
which is now in the mouth of every schoolboy. Five 
years afterward, in 1825, he spoke at Bunker Hill, 
at the semi-centennial Celebration of the glorious 
Battle which had there been fought. In a few months 
he was called to commemorate the services of Adams 
and Jefferson, whose deaths occurred under circum- 
stances of such curious coincidence. On the 22d 
Februar}', 1832, upon the completion of a century 
from the birth of Washington, Mr. Webster was 
called upon to deliver an Addrcjss at the National 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 31 

Capital, and encliained the attention of his audience, 
bj a fascinating delineation of the virtues of the Fa- 
ther of his Country. 

In November, 1826, Mr. Webster was again soli- 
cited to represent his District in the House, for the 
third time, but before he had taken his seat, a va- 
cancy occurring in the Senate by the retirement of 
the venerable Elijah H. Mills, Mr. Webster was 
chosen to fill that post. 

Toward the close of the year 1827, a heavy do- 
mestic affliction was visited upon Mr. Webster, in the 
loss of his wife. They were on the way to Washing- 
ton when Mrs. Webster was taken ill, and soon died. 
This melancholy event prevented Mr. Webster from 
taking his seat in the Senate until January, 1 828. 

In the Senatorial career of Mr. Webster, so many 
elements of power and popularity have passed into 
record, that it is difficult to embrace, in a simple 
sketch, all the peculiar features of the great move- 
ments in which he took part. Mr. Calhoun, as Vice- 
President, occupied the chair of the Senate. Messrs. 
Forsyth, Benton, Van Buren, Woodbury, Tazewell, 
Clayton and Hayne, were among the Senators. Mr. 
Webster's first parliamentary encounter, upon his en- 
trance into the Senate, took place with Mr. Tazewell, 
of Virginia. The subject in dispute was the Process 
Bill, contrived for the regulation of the proceedings 
of the United States Courts, and the details of the 
controversy had little public interest. Mr. Webster 
afterward made strong and praiseworthy exertions in 
aid of the measures of relief to the surviving officers of 
the Revolution. In regard to the Tariff, upon which the 



32 ^ MEMORIALS OF 



controversy of past days was renewed, Mr. Yy eoster 
deemed it his duty to vote for the amended bill in- 
troduced into the Senate. In the course of his re- 
marks upon certain objections which he had urged 
against the measure, and for which he sought an im- 
provement, he defended New-England from the injuri- 
ous reports that had been circulated against her, and 
established anew the credit of that large and industri- 
ous section of the country. Though disapproving of 
some of the provisions contained in the amended bill, 
he yet believed it an improvement in certain parti- 
culars, and gave it his affirmative vote — a course 
which he deemed it but just to explain to his consti- 
tuents upon his return home. In a speech at Faneuil 
Hall he made particular allusion to the circumstances 
of that vote, and received the approval of the people 
of the Commonwealth. 

DEBATE WITH IIzVYXE. 

The next event in Mr. Webster's life was one 
which won imperishable laurels for himself, and cast 
lustre upon the councils of his country. It was the 
part he took in the great controversy in the Senate 
between the North and South — between the national 
views of the Constitution which Mr. Webster had 
often vindicated, and the doctrines of State Rights, 
which had been for years so ably enforced by Mr. 
Calhoun, and had reached a position of commanding 
influence. 

Gen. Jackson had been elected to the Presidency 
in the Fall of 1828, by an overwhelming popular ma- 
jority, against John Quincy Adams, whose adminis- 



DANIEL VVEBSTEH. 33 



tration, althougli marked by signal ability, and a 
purity seldom paralleled in the recent history of our 
Government, had failed to fasten itself upon the pop- 
ular sympathy. Mr. Adams was a man of sharp in- 
tellect, multifarious knowledge, large experience in 
public affairs, and of cold, calm courage, but without 
a spark of enthusiasm in his nature, or any of those 
qualities which command the attachment and secure 
the support of great masses of men. Gen. Jackson, 
on the contrary, lacking all the faculties which his 
opponent had, possessed all those which he lacked. 
A man .of clear perceptions, prompt and generous im- 
pulses — unflinching as a friend and relentless as a 
foe — daring in action, and of unconquerable will, and 
conspicuous in the eyes of the whole country for his 
victory at New Orleans in the war of 1812, he had 
come into power by a larger majority than had ever 
before been given to any candidate. And among his 
friends were those who had before been distinguished 
for devotion to Mr. Calhoun, and the friends of Mr. 
Crawford. Mr. Calhoun was chosen Vice-President 
at the same election. Thus, though overwhelmingly 
strong, the Democratic party was really composed of 
discordant materials — being divided especially upon 
the fundamental principles upon which our govern- 
ment rests — Mr. Calhoun and his friends, insisting 
upon a strict construction of the Constitution, and 
the most rigid limitation of the powers of the Gene- 
ral Government under it, and the other section in- 
heriting by legitimate descent the more liberal and 
national doctrines of Madison and Monroe, and being 
friendly to the protection of American industry, and 



34 MEMORIALS OF 



the prosecution of works of internal improvement. 
Both these parties were, however, at this time, unit- 
ed in cordial support of Gen. Jackson, and in an 
equally cordial hostility to the leaders of the party 
against which he had been elected, and among these 
leaders Mr. Webster, of course, stood pre-eminent. 

The first session of the Twenty-first Congress 
opened in December, 1829, Mr. Calhoun presiding in 
the Senate. Prominent among the topics to which 
political attention was directed, was that of the pub- 
lic lands. Both parties, and especially both sections 
of the country, the North and the South, were anxious 
to secure the political alliance of the Western States ; 
and although the measures of each were doubtless 
dictated mainly by a sincere regard for the public 
good, it is not uncharitable to suppose that political 
purposes had more or less influence with both. Lit- 
tle, however, had been said upon the subject until 
Mr. Foote of Connecticut, on the 29th of December, 
introduced the following apparently innocent resolu- 
tion of inquiry : — 

Resolved — That the Committee on Public Lands 
be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of 
public lands remaining unsold within each State and 
Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a 
certain period the sales of public lands, to such lands 
as have heretofore been ofiered for sale, and are now 
subject to entry at the ininimmn price. And also, 
whether the office of Surveyor G-eneral, and some of 
the landed offices, may not be abolished, without 
detriment to the juiblic service. 



It has been alleged that this resolution was in 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 35 



reality the signal and starting point of a predetermined 
crusade, on the part of General Jackson's friends, 
against New England, and especially Mr. Webster, 
as its most conspicuous and formidable representative. 
At the time, however, no such purpose was suspected ; 
and it is only by reverting to the concurrent features 
of the case that subsequent examination has brought 
circumstantial evidence in support of the charge. Mr. 
Webster, it is certain, was just at that time made the 
shining mark for the combined attacks of the party in 
power. The party press throughout the country sought 
to evince its devotion to Gen. Jackson by assault upon 
Mr. Webster. The leading friends of the President 
and Vice-President, in both Houses of Congress and 
throughout the country, aimed their most powerful 
blows at his head, with an energy and determination 
which might well suggest the suspicion of a precon- 
certed purpose. It seems more likely, however, that 
this was simply the result of the position of parties 
and of their prominent men. The Presidential con- 
test had been marked by great warmth and bitterness, 
and this zeal had not been in the least diminished by 
the complete success by which it had been crowned. 
The dominant party, on the contrary, seemed the 
more resolute in its purpose of destroying and anni- 
hilating all opposition — and as New England was the 
citadel of that hostility, and Mr. Webster the solitary 
but formidable champion who defended its gates, and 
hurled the crushing missiles of war from its uncon- 
quered towers, it was natural, and indeed inevitable, 
that their main assault should be turned against him, 
and the section which he represented The day after 



36 MEMORIALS OF 



Mr. Foote offered his resolution, on calling it up for 
consideration, he said he had presented it from having 
seen a statement in the last report of the Commissioners 
of the Land Office, that the quantity of land remain- 
ing unsold at the minimum price of one dollar and a 
quarter per acre, exceeded seventy-two millions of 
acres — while the annual demand was not likely greatly 
to exceed one million acres — and he was desirous of 
further official information upon the subject. 

Senator Benton, of Missouri, — then, as now. wide 
awake and keenly suspicious of designs upon himself 
and the West, whenever any Western topic was 
touched in debate, — scented the battle afar off. in this 
formal and ostensibly harmless resolution. He stig- 
matized it at once as a resolution of inquiry into the 
expediency of committing a serious injury upon the 
new States of the West. Mr. Foote earnestly dis- 
claimed any such purpose, and several other Senators 
vindicated the resolution from any such construction. 
After a brief and colloquial controversy, not wholly 
void of feeling, upon this point, a motion was carried 
postponing the further consideration of the subject 
until Monday, the 11th of January, for which day it 
was made the special order. When that day arrived 
it was again postponed until the 13th ; and then, after 
several Western gentlemen had spoken briefly upon 
it, it was laid over until Monday, the 18th. On that 
day, and evidently after much preparation, and an 
evident xmrsing of his political wrath, Mr,. Benton 
took the floor against the resolution. His speech 
was the development of the idea he had put forth at 
the outset, — that the resolution was aimed at the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



3Y 



West ; and he proceeded to show that the attack came 
from New England, and that it was really dh-ected 
against Jiim. '• The resolution," said he, '• was intro- 
duced to check-mate my graduation bill ! It was an 
offer of battle to the West ! I accepted the offer ; I 
am fighting the battle; some are crying out and 
hauling off; but I am standing to it, and mean te 
stand to it. I call upon the adversary to come on 
and lay on ; and I tell him, 

'Damn'd be he that first cries hold,— enough !' " 

Col. Benton proceeded to a studied attack upon 
New England, — to a denunciation of her policy to- 
wards the West as illiberal and unjust, — and to the 
declaration that the West would thereafter look to 
the South for succor. This was the key-note of the 
debate that followed. The real merits of the (Ques- 
tion rapidly gave way to a discussion of the relative 
position of different sections of the country towards 
it. The next day Mr. Holmes, of Maine, replied at 
leno;lh to Mr. Benton. Other Senators also partici- 
pated in the discussion, and finally Col. Hayne, of 
South Carolina, commenced a speech which consumed 
the rest of the day. 

Hayne was one of the younger Senators, — of un- 
doubted ability and over-confident courage. He had 
filled with ^c/at successive ofiices of trust and respon- 
sibility in his native State, and brought to the Sen- 
ate in 1823 a brilliant and. growing reputation. His 
characteristics have been well set forth by Mr. March 
in his '■ Reminiscences of Congress." '• Hayne," he 
says, '• dashed into debate like the Mameluke cavalry 



38 MEMORIALS OF 



upon a charge. There was a gallant air about him, 
that could not but win admiration. He never pro- 
vided for retreat : he never imagined it. He had an 
invincible confidence in himself, which arose partly 
from constitutional temperament, partly from previous 
success. His was the Napoleonic warfare: to strike 
at once for the Capitol of the enemy, heedless of dan- 
ger or loss to his own forces. Not doubting to over- 
come all odds, he feared none, however seemingly 
superior. Of great fluency and no little force of ex- 
pression, his speech never halted, and seldom fatigued. 
His oratory was graceful and persuasive. An impas- 
sioned manner, somewhat vehement at times, but 
rarely, if ever extravagant : a voice well modulated 
and clear : a distinct, though rapid enunciation : a 
confident, but not often ofiensive address : these, ac- 
companying and illustrating language well selected 
and periods well turned, made him a popular and 
efi'ective speaker."' In his speech at this stage of the 
debate. Col. Hayne took occasion to respond to Col. 
Benton, by assuring him that the West might always 
count upon the sympathies of the South, and by echo- 
ing and strengthening the assaults he had made upon 
the character and condition of New England. He 
alleged that the East was not willing that the public 
lands should be thrown open on easy terms to settlers 
for fear of being drained of its population. The 
Eastern States, he said, had always sought to retain 
their population at home — " to create a manufactory 
of paupers, who should supply the manufactories of 
rich proprietors, and enable them to amass great 
wealth." He followed up this attack upon the policy 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 39 



of New England with great bitterness, — character- 
izing her course on the public lands especially, as 
selfish and unprincipled. Neither Mr. Webster nor 
his friends could help feeling sensitive under such 
assaults, and point was given to their resentment by 
the belief that they were mainly directed against Mr. 
Webster personally, and were intended as much to 
crush him as to promote the welfare of the West. 
At the previous session, Col. Hayne had made a 
sharp attack upon his opinions and conduct, to which, 
however, he had forborne to make any reply. But 
upon this occasion, he felt called on to respond ; and 
on the next day, therefore, he spoke at some length 
in reply, — confining himself clearly to the topic under 
discussion, and referring only incidentally to the tem- 
per in which the debate had been conducted on the 
part of his opponents. His speech was little more, 
indeed, than a very clear and well-digested historical 
statement of the actual steps taken by the General 
Government in regard to the public lands, and of the 
part which New England had borne*in that action. 
He depicted with graphic power the wonderful changes 
which had taken place in the Western States, — their 
rapid and marvellous increase of population, and the 
almost magic transformation of their unbroken for- 
ests into the abodes of civilization and comfort. And 
in regard to the measures of the General Government 
by which this change had been wrought, he " under- 
took to say," in general terms — sustaining this state- 
ment, however, by reference to the records of Con- 
gress — that '• if you look to the votes on any one of 
these measures, and strike out from the list of ayes 



40 MEMORIALS OF 



the names of New England members, it will be found 
that in every case the South would then have voted 
doion the West, and the measure would have failed." 
This sweeping declaration, made with exactness and 
emphasis, was a direct acceptance of the issue made, 
between the North and South, in regard to the re- 
spective conduct of each section towards the West. 
He closed by apologizing for thus alluding to local 
opinions and contrasting different portions of the 
country — a course which, he said, had been forced 
upon him by charges and imputations on the public 
character and conduct of the State which he repre- 
sented, which he knew to be undeserved and unfound- 
ed. " While I stand here," said he, " as representa- 
tive of Massachusetts, I will be her true representa- 
tive, and, by the blessing of God, I will vindicate her 
character, motives and history from every imputation 
coming from a respectable source." Col. Benton fol- 
lowed Mr. Webster, and at once commenced a speech 
in reply. The next day (Thursday, the 21st), Mr. 
Chambers, of Af!lryland, expressed a hope that the 
Senate would postpone the further consideration of 
the subject until the next Monday, as Mr. Webster, 
who desired to be present whenever it should be re- 
sumed, had pressing engagements in another quarter, 
and could not conveniently attend in the Senate. It 
was well understood that the legal case of a good deal 
of imnortance, in which John Jacob Astor and the 
State of New-York were parties, and in which Mr. 
Webster was of counsel — was pending in the Supreme 
Court, and the argument had actually commenced 
on the 20th. Col. Ilayne, however, resented the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 41 



suggestion of postponement. He said '• he saw the 
gentleman from Massachusetts in his seat, and pre- 
sumed he could make an arrangement which would 
enable him to attend." He was unwilling that the 
subject should be postponed until he could reply to 
certain observations which had fallen from Mr. Web- 
ster the day before. Unable, and not caring, to re- 
strain evidences of the feeling which Mr. Webster's 
speech had excited, he confessed that some things 
had fallen from him on that occasion which rankled 
here (touching his heart), and he desired at once to 
relieve himself. " The gentleman," he said, " has dis- 
charged his fire in the face of the Senate ; and I hope 
the opportunity will now be afforded me of returning 
the shot." The menaces implied in this language, of 
course, left Mr. Webster no alternative. With swell- 
ing chest and lofty dignity of manner, he exclaimed : 
'■ Let the discussion proceed. I am ready. I am 
ready now to receive the gentleman's fire." The dis- 
cussion, of course, did proceed. Col. Benton finished 
his speech ; and Mr. Bell, of New Hampshire, then 
moved that the further consideration of the subject 
be postponed until Monday. This was lost by a 
party vote. And Col. Hayne at once commenced his 
speech in reply to Mr. Webster. 

He spoke on that occasion for about an hour. 
He began by disavowing having had any purpose of 
charging any section of the country with hostility to 
any other, and by professing surprise at the manner 
in which his remarks had been received. He had 
questioned no man's opinion ; he impeached no man's 
motives. The Senator from Missouri had indeed 



42 MEMORIALS OF 



charged upon the Northern States an early and con- 
tinued hostility towards the West ; but, after deliber- 
ating a whole night, the gentleman from Massachu- 
setts had come into the Senate to vindicate New 
England, and, instead of making up his issue with 
the gentleman from Missouri, on the charge which 
he had preferred, said Col. H., " he chooses to con- 
sider me as the author of those charges ; selects me 
as his adversary, and pours out all the vials of his 
mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he 
willing to stop there. He goes on to assail the insti- 
tutions and policy of the South, and calls in question 
the principles and conduct of the State which I have 
the honor to represent." Col. Hayne went on to 
suggest reasons for this course on the part of Mr. 
Webster. '' Has he discovered." he asked, " in former 
controversies with the gentleman from Missouri, that 
he is o\ev-matchcd by that Senator ; and does he 
hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adver- 
sary ? Has his distempered fancy been disturbed by 
gloomy forebodings of the ' new alliances to be 
formed,' at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the 
murdered Coalition come back, like the ghost of the 
murdered Banquo, to ' sear the eyeballs ' of the gen- 
tleman, and will it not ' down at his bidding 1 ' Are 
dark visions of broken hopes and honors lost for ever 
still floating before his heated imagination?" And 
he proceeded to say that he would not suffer Mi. 
Webster thus to thrust him between the gentleman 
from Missouri and himself, in order to rescue the 
East from the contest with the West, which he had 
provoked. '' The South shall not be forced into a 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 43 



conflict not its own. The gallant West needs no aid 
from the South to repel any attack which may be 
made on them from any quarter." With this exor- 
dium, well calculated to stimulate interest and to 
prepare the wa}^ for a severe personal collision, Col. 
Hayne went on to repel the idea that the West had 
grown great in consequence of the measures of the 
General Government, upon which Mr. Webster had 
pronounced what he styled an extravagant eulogium. 
He ridiculed also the pretensions preferred by Mr. 
Webster to prominence as a statesman, on behalf of 
" a certain Nathan Dane, of Beverley, Massachusetts," 
who was only known to the South, he said, as " a 
member of a celebrated Assembly, called and known 
by the name of the Hartford Convention." His next 
point was to show that in 1825 Mr. Webster had 
held and expressed upon the subject of the public 
lands precisely the views which he himself had now 
advanced, and which Mr. Webster had assailed. " In 
1825," said he, "the gentleman told the world that 
the public lands ' ought not to be treated as a trea- 
sure.' He now tells us that they ' must be treated 
as so much treasure.' What the deliberate opinion 
of the gentleman on this subject may be belongs not 
to me to determine ; but I do not think he can, with 
the shadow of justice or propriety, impugn my senti- 
ments, while his own recorded opinions are identical 
with my own." Col. H. next took up Mr. Webster's 
claim that the East had always shown its friendli- 
ness towards the West, by favoring internal improve- 
ments, from which the South had been deterred by 
its constitutional scruples. He alleged, in reply, that 



44 MEMORIALS OF 



the only occasion in which the East had thus favored 
the West was in 1825, when the presidential election 
was pending in the House of Representatives. There 
it was, he said, that '- a happy union between the 
members of the celebrated coalition was consummated, 
Avhose immediate issue was a President from one 
quarter of the Union, with the succession, as it was 
supposed, to another." Referring next to the intima- 
tion thrown out by Mr. Webster that the extraordi- 
nary fervor of the South for the payment of the na- 
tional debt arose from a disposition to weaken the 
ties which bind the people to the Union, Col. H. re- 
pudiated the idea for the South, that a pecuniary 
dependence on the Federal Government was one of 
the legitimate means of holding the State together. 
And coming then to the claim of Mr. Webster that 
the transcendent prosperity of Ohio had been due in 
a great degree to the Ordinance of 1787, which had 
"secured to her a population oi free men^'' Col. H. 
entered into an extended rebuke of this attack upon 
Southern slavery, contrasting the condition of the 
slaves with that of the free blacks of the North, de- 
nying that slavery was an element of weakness to 
the South, stigmatizing the friendship professed for 
the blacks as springing from the spirit of false phi- 
lanthropy, which, like the father of evil, is constantly 
walking to and fro about the earth, seeking whom it 
may devour," and claiming that slavery had been 
the means of greatly elevating the individual charac- 
ter of the Southern people. He next assailed Mr. 
Webster's position in regard to the consolidation of 
the Government, provided for by the Constitution, — 



DANIEL WEUSTER. 45 



insisting that the Union was not designed to be na- 
tional but federal ; and, then referring to the subject 
of the Tariff, charged Mr. Webster with glaring in- 
consistency in having advocated Free Trade in 1824, 
and in 1828 having supported the Tariff which had 
been known ever since as the "bill of abominations." 
Colonel Hayne closed his speech on that day by 
citing Mr. Webster's intimation that there was a par- 
ty in the South who were looking to disunion. If 
the accusation had been vague and general, he said he 
should have passed it without notice. But as Mr. 
Webster had given to it a local habitation and a 
name, by quoting the expression of a distinguished 
citizen of South Carolina, (Dr. Cooper.) that " it was 
time for the South to calculate the value of the 
Union," and in the language of the bitterest sarcasm 
to add, '• surely then the Union cannot last longer 
than July, 1831," it was impossible to mistake either 
the allusion or the object. And he finished by pro- 
testing that this controversy was not of his seeking ; 
that at the time this unprovoked and uncalled for at- 
tack was made ujDon the South, not one word had 
been uttered by him in disjDaragement of New Eng- 
land, nor had he the most distant allusion either to 
the Senator from Massachusetts, or the State which 
he represent?. " But, sir," he added, " that gentle- 
man has thought proper, for purposes best known to 
himself, to strike the South through me, the most 
unworthy of her servants. He has crossed the bor- 
der, he has invaded the State of South Carolina, is 
making war upon her citizens, and endeavoring to 
overthrow her principles and her institutions. Sir, 



46 MEMORIALS OP 



when the gentleman provokes me to such a conflict, 
I meet him at the threshold. I will struggle while I 
have life, for our altars and our firesides — and if 
God gives me strength, I will drive back the invader 
discomfited. Nor shall I stop there. If the gentle- 
man provokes the war, he shall have war. Sir, I will 
not stop at the border — I will carry the war into the 
enemy's territory, and not consent to lay down my 
arms until I have obtained indemnity for the past 
and security for the future. It is with unfeigned re- 
luctance, Mr. President, that I enter upon the per- 
formance of this part of my duty — I shrink almost 
instinctively from a course, however necessary, which 
may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings and 
sectional jealousies. But, sir, the task has been 
forced upon me ; and I proceed right onward to the 
performance of my duty. Be the consequences what 
they may, the responsibility is with those who have 
imposed upon me the necessity. The Senator from 
Massachusetts has thought proper to cast the first 
stone ; and if he shall find, according to a homely 
adage, that he ' lives in a glass-house,' on his head 
be the consequences." And with this formidable 
warning, savoring far more of arrogant confidence 
than of dignity and good taste. Col. Hayne gave way 
to a motion to adjourn until Monday, which was car- 
ried. The intervening time was spent in preparing 
to rivet and strengthen the impression already made 
against Mr. Webster. The boldness of the attack, 
the direct personality which the debate had assumed, 
and the vehemence of the orator's language and man- 
ner, had given great force to the speech ; and it was 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 47 



generally felt that he had made a formidable and ef- 
fective onset. Colonel Hayne was warmly congra- 
tulated by all his party friends upon his success, and 
was stimulated to renewed assaults. The party 
press swelled the acclamations with which his speech 
was greeted, and extolled it as the greatest effort of 
ancient or of modern times. Mr. Webster's friends, 
moreover, were not free from misgivings. Though 
by no means lacking confidence in the ability of their 
great leader, they had never seen him exposed to an 
attack of precisely this character, and could not, 
therefore, be fully assured as to the manner in which 
he would meet it. Some of the friends of Colonel 
Hayne, it is said, who had felt Mr. Webster's power 
directed against themselves, were by no means sure 
that the victory would rest with their own champion. 
To a friend of Hayne, who was praising his speech, 
Mr. Iredell, of South Carolina, remarked ; " He has 
started the lion, but wait till we hear him roar, or 
feel his claws." On Monday, in continuing his 
speech. Col. Hayne spoke, first, in impassioned terras 
of the services rendered to the country by South Ca- 
rolina, during the war of the Revolution, in the poli- 
tical crisis of 1798, and during the war of 1812; 
and he then proceeded to a detailed denunciation of 
the conduct of New England, and especially of Mas- 
sachusetts, in that contest with Great Britain, al- 
leging that they had taken sides with the enemy and 
against their own country, and sustaining his accusa- 
tions by conious citations from the federal newspa- 
pers, partisan speeches, and the pulpit declamations 
of that day. He then entered upon an exposition 



48 MEMORIALS OF 



and vindication of the theory of the Federal Govern- 
ment as held by the South, in opposition to the the- 
ory of Consolidation, for which, as he alleged, Mr. 
Webster was contending, quoting Jefferson and Mad- 
ison, and resolutions passed by the Legislatures of 
several Southern States, in support of his view, and 
closing his speech by an earnest declaration that in 
all the steps she had taken to resist the encroach-, 
ments and usurpations of the Federal Government, 
South Carolina was acting on a principle she had al- 
ways held sacred, " resistance to unauthorized taxa- 
tion." " Sir," he exclaimed in conclusion, " if acting 
on these high motives — if animated by that ardent 
love of liberty which has always been the most promr 
inent trait of the Southern character — we should be 
hurried beyond the bounds of a cold and calculating 
prudence, who is there with one noble and generous 
sentiment in his bosom, that would not be disposed, 
in the language of Burke, to exclaim, ' Yoii -must 
pardon something to the spirit of Liberty.'" 

The onset was over. And, as would have been 
the case had the attack been less formidable than it 
was, victory rested with the only party whose forces 
had been displayed. Mr. Webster immediately rose 
to reply, but, as it was late in the day, he gave way 
to a motion to adjourn. Everywhere during the 
evening and night following, the speech was canvassed. 
''The town," says Mr. March, "was divided into 
geographical opinions. One's home could be distin- 
guished from his countenance or manner; a Southern- 
er's by his buoyant, joyous expression and confident 
air ; a Yankee's by his timid, anxious eye and de- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 49 



pressed bearing. One walked with a bold determin- 
ed step that courted observation ; the other with a 
hesitating, shuffling gait, that seemed to long for 
some dark corner, some place to hear and see, and be 
unseen." Mr. Webster felt entirely conscious of abi- 
lity to meet both the argument and the assault, and 
was perfectly calm and self-possessed. Mr. Everett, 
recording a conversation which he had with Mr. 
Webster at the time, speaks of the dry business-tone 
in which he talked and read over to him, the points 
he intended to make, as giving him some uneasiness 
for fear he was not sufl&ciently aware how much was 
expected of him the next day. He had, of course, 
taken full notes of Col. Hayne's speech, and had 
given to each part of it a careful and exhaustive con- 
sideration. Not a quotation nor an allusion had es- 
caped him. It is mentioned that, while lying down 
after dinner, he was overheard, by a friend, laughing 
to himself On being asked what amused him so, he 
replied, " I have been thinking of the way in which 
Col. Hayne's quotation about Banquo's ghost, can be 
turned against himself ; and I am going to get up 
and make a note of it," — which he immediatel}" did. 
The scenes and incidents of the next day are so vi- 
vidly presented in one of the chapters of Mr. March's 
Reminiscences, and the sketch has so much of liter- 
ary, as well as biographical interest, that we transfer 
it, with trifling omissions, to our columns. 

It was on Tuesday, January the 26th, 1830, — a 

day to be hereafter for ever memorable in Senatorial 

annals, — that the Senate resumed the consideration 

of Foote's Resolution. There never was before, in 

3 



50 MEMORIALS OF 



the city, an occasion of so much excitement. To 
witness this great intellectual contest, multitudes of 
strangers had for two or three days previous been 
rushing into the city, and the hotels overflowed. As 
early as 9 o'clock of this morning, crowds poured into 
the Capitol in hot haste; at 12 o'clock, the hour of 
meeting, the Senate Chamber, — its galleries, floors, 
and even lobbies, — was filled to its utmost capacity. 
The very stairways were dark with men, who hung on 
to one another, like bees in a swarm. 

The House of Representatives was early deserted. 
An adjournment would have hardly made it emptier. 
The Speaker, it is true, retained his chair, but no 
business of moment was, or could be attended to. 
Members all rushed in to hear Mr. Webster, and no 
call of the House or other parliamentary proceedings 
could compel them back. The floor of the Senate 
was so densely crowded that persons once in, could 
not get out, nor change their position ; in the rear of 
the Vice -Presidential chair, the crowd was particu- 
larly intense. Dixon H. Lewis, then a representa- 
tive from Alabama, became wedged in here. From 
his enormous size, it was impossible for him to move, 
without displacing a vast portion of the multitude. 
Unfortunately too, for him, he was jammed in directly 
behind the chair of the Vice-President, where he 
could not see, and hardly hear, the speaker. By 
slow and laborious efi'ort — pausing occasionally to 
breathe, he gained one of the windows, which, con- 
structed of painted glass, flank the chair of the Vice- 
President on either side. Here he paused unable to 
make more headway. But determined to see Mr. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 51 

Webster as he spoke, with his knife he made a large 
hole in one of the panes of the glass ; which is still 
visible as he made it. Many were so placed, as not 
to be able to see the speaker at all. 

The courtesy of Senators accorded to the fairer 
sex room on the floor — the most gallant of them, 
their own seats. The gay bonnets and brilliant dresses 
threw a varied and picturesque beauty over the scene, 
softening and embellishing it. 

Seldom, if ever, has speaker in this or any other 
country had more powerful incentives to exertion ; a 
subject, the determination of which, involved the 
most important interests, and even duration, of the 
republic ; competitors, unequalled in reputation, abi- 
lity, or position ; a name to make still more glorious, 
or lose for ever ; an audience comprising not only 
persons of this country most eminent in intellectual 
greatness, but representatives of other nations, where 
the art of eloquence had flourished for ages. All 
the soldier seeks in opportunity was here. 

Mr. Webster perceived, and felt equal to the 
destinies of the moment. The very greatness of the 
hazard exhilarated him. His spirits rose with the 
occasion. He awaited the time of the onset with a 
stern and impatient joy. He felt like the war-horse 
of the Scriptures,— who '• paweth in the valley, and 
rejoiceth in his strength : who goeth on to meet the 
armed men, — who sayeth among the trumpets. Ha, 
ha ! and who smelleth the battle afar off", the thunder 
of the captains and the shouting." 

A confidence in his own resources, springing from 
no vain estimate of his power, but the legitimate off- 



52 MEMORIALS OF 



spring of preyioiis severe mental discipline sustained 
and excited him. He had gauged his opponents, his 
subject and himself. 

He was too, at this period, in the very prime of 
manhood. He had reached middle age — an era in 
the life of man, when the faculties, physical or intel- 
lectual, may be supposed to attain their fullest organ- 
ization, and most perfect development. \Yhatever 
there was in him of intellectual energy and vitality, 
the occasion, his full life and high ambition, might 
well bring forth. 

He never rose on an ordinary occasion, to address 
an ordinary audience, more self-possessed. There 
was no tremulousness in his voice or manner ; noth- 
ing hurried, nothing simulated. The calmness of 
superior strength was visible everywhere ; in counte- 
nance, voice and bearing. A deep-seated conviction 
of the extraordinary character of the emergency, 
and of his ability to control it, seemed to possess 
him wholly. If an observer, more than ordinarily 
keen-sighted, detected at times something like exul- 
tation in his eye, he presumed it sprang from the 
excitement of the moment, and the anticipation of 
victory. 

The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, ir- 
repressible and universal, that no sooner had the 
Vice-President assumed the chair, than a motion was 
made, and unanimously carried, to postpone the ordi- 
nary preliminaries of senatorial action, and take up, 
immediately, the consideration of the resolution. 

Mr. "Webster rose and addressed the Senate. His 
exordium is known by heart everywhere : " Mr. Presi- 



DANIEL "WEBSTER. 53 



dent, when the mariner has been tossed for many 
days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he 
naturally avails himself of the first pause in the 
storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his lati- 
tude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven 
him from his true course. Let us imitate this pru- 
dence ; and before we float further on the waves of 
this debate, refer to the point from which we depart- 
ed, that we may, at least, be able to form some con- 
jecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of 
the resolution." 

There wanted no more to enchain the attention. 
There was a spontaneous, though silent expression of 
eager approbation, as the orator concluded these open- 
ing remarks ; and while the Clerk read the resolu- 
tion, many attempted the impossibility of getting 
nearer the speaker. Every head was inclined closer 
towards him, every ear turned in the direction of his 
yoice — and that deep, sudden, mysterious silence fol- 
lowed, which always attends fulness of emotion. 
From the sea of upturned faces, before him, the ora- 
tor beheld his thoughts reflected as from a mirror. 
The varying countenance, the suff'used eye, the ear- 
nest smile, and ever-attentive look, assured him of 
his audience's entire sympathy. If among his hear- 
ers there were those who affected, at first, an indifi"er- 
ence to his glowing thoughts and fervent periods, the 
difiicult mask was soon laid aside, and profound, un- 
disguised, devoted attention followed. In the earlier 
part of his speech, one of his principal opponents 
seemed deeply engrossed in the careful perusal of a 
newspaper he held before his face ; but this, on near- 



54 MEMORIALS OF 



er approach, proved to be upside doiun. In truth, 
all, sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of them- 
selves, were wholly carried away by the eloquence of 
the orator. 

One of the happiest retorts ever made in a foren- 
sic controversy, was his application of Hayne's com- 
parison of the ghost of the " murdered coalition " to 
the Ghost of Banquo : 

" Sir, the honorable member was not, for other 
reasons, entirely happy in his allusions to the story 
of Banquo's murder and Banquo's ghost. It was 
not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the mur- 
dered Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not 
down. The honorable gentleman is fresh in his 
reading of the English classics, and can put me right 
if I am wrong ; but, according to my poor recollec- 
tion, it was at those who had begun with caresses and 
ended with foul and treacherous murder, that the 
gory locks were shaken. The ghost of Banquo, like 
that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed 
no innocent man. It knew where its appearance 
would strike terror, and who would cry out 'A ghost!' 
It made itself visible in the right quarter, and com- 
pelled the guilty and the conscience-smitten, and 
none others, to start, with, 

' Prithee, see there ! behold ! look ! lo, 
If I stand here, I saw him !' 

Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, sir ?) who 
had thought to shield themselves, by concealing their 
own hand, and laying the imputation of the crime on 
a low and hireling agency in wickedness ; who had 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 55 



vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own 
coward consciences, by ejaculating, through white lips 
and chattering teeth, ' Thou canst not say I did it !' 
I have misread the great poet if those who had no 
way partaken in the deed of death, either found that 
they were, ov feared that they should be^ pushed from 
their stools by the ghost of the slain, or exclaimed, 
to a spectre created by their own fears and their own 
remorse, " Avaunt ! and quit our sight !" 

There was a smile of appreciation upon the faces 
all around, at this most felicitous use of another's 
illustration — this turning one's own witness against 
him — in which Col. Hayne good-humoredly joined. 

As the orator carried out the moral of Macbeth, 
and proved by the example of that deep thinking, 
intellectual, but insanely ambitious character, how 
little of substantial good or permanent power was to 
be secured by a devious and unblessed policy, he 
turned his eye with a significance of expression, full 
of prophetic revelation upon the Vice-President, re- 
minding him that those who had foully removed Ban- 
quo, had placed 

"A barren sceptre in tlieir gripe, 
Thence to he ivrenched by an unlineal hand, 
No son of theirs succeeding.'''' 

Every eye of the whole audience followed the direc- 
tion of his own, and witnessed the changing counte- 
nance and visible agitation of Mr. Calhoun. 

Surely no prediction ever met a more rapid or 
fuller confirmation, even to the very manner in which 
the disaster w^as accomplished. Within a few brief 



56 MEMORIALS OF 



months, the political fortunes of the Vice-President, 
at this moment seemingly on the very point of culmi- 
nation, had sunk so low, there were none so poor to 
do him reverence. 

Whether, for a moment, a presentiment of the 
approaching crisis in his fate, forced upon his mind 
by the manner and language of the speaker, cast a 
gloom over his countenance, or some other cause, it is 
impossible to say ; but his brow grew dark — nor for 
some time did his features recover their usual impas- 
sibility. 

The allusion nettled him — the more, as he could 
not but witness the effect it produced upon others — 
and made him restless. He seemed to seek an op- 
portunity to break in upon the speaker ; and, later in 
the day, as Mr. Webster was exposing the gross and 
ludicrous inconsistencies of South Carolina poli- 
ticians, upon the subject of internal improvements, 
he interrupted him with some eagerness : " Does the 
Chair understand the gentleman from Massachusetts 
to say that the person now occupying the Chair of 
the Senate has changed his opinions on this subject?" 
To this Mr. Webster replied immediately and good- 
naturedly : " From nothing ever said to me, sir, have 
I had reason to know of any change in the opinions 
of the person filling the Chair of the Senate. If 
such change has taken place, I regret it." 



5;* 



* Mr. Calhoun's interruption was un-Parliamentary, or rather, 
un-Senatoriah The Vice-President is not a member of the Sen- 
ate, and has no voice in it, save for the preservation of order and 
enforcement of the rules. lie cannot participate otherwise, either 
in the debates or proccedhigs. He is simply the presiding offi- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 57 



Those who had doubted Mr. Webster's ability to 
cope w^ith and overcome his opponents were fully sat- 
isfied of their error before he had proceeded far in 
his speech. Their fears soon took another direction. 
When they heard his sentences of powerful thought, 
towering in accumulative grandeur, one above the 
other, as if the orator strove, Titan-like, to reach the 
very heavens themselves, they were giddy with an ap- 
prehension that he would break down in his flight. 
They dared not believe that genius, learning, any in- 
tellectual endowment, however uncommon, that was 
simply mortal, could sustain itself long in a career 
seemingly so perilous. They feared an Icarian fall. 

Ah ! who can ever forget, that was present to 
hear, the tremendous, the aivful burst of eloquence 
with which the orator spoke of the Old Bay State ! 
or the tones of deep pathos in which the words were 
pronounced : 

" Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium 

cer of tl\c Senate, having no vote in its affairs, save on a tie. Had 
Mr. Webster made a direct, unmistakable allusion to him, Mr. 
Calhoun still could have replied through a friendly Senator, or 
the press. On this occasion he was too much excited to attend 
to the etiquette of his position. His feelings and his interest in 
the question made him forgetful of his duty. 

Some time later than this, after a rupture had taken place be- 
tween Gen. Jackson and himself, Mr. Forsyth, of Ga., on being 
interrupted by some (as he thought) uncalled for question or re- 
mark, rebuked him in an emphatic manner for violation of offi- 
cial etiquette. Mr. Van Buren, who ousted and succeeded him, 
always remained silent, placid, imperturbable in his scat, how- 
ever personal or severe the attack upon him ; and no Vice-Pres- 
ident, since his day, has ever attempted to interfere with the dis- 
cussions of the Senate. 

3* 



58 MEMORIALS OF 



•upon Massachusetts. There she is — behold her, and 
judge for yourselves. There is her history : the 
world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is 
secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexing- 
ton, and Bunker Hill — and there they will remain 
for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great 
struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the 
soil of every State, from New England to G-eorgia, 
and there they will lie for ever. And, sir, where 
American Liberty raised its first voice ; and where 
its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still 
lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its 
original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound 
it — if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at 
and tear it — if folly and madness — if uneasiness, un- 
der salutary and necessary restraint — shall succeed 
to separate it from that Union, by which alone its 
existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by 
the side of that cradle in which its infancy was 
rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever 
of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who 
gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it 
must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own 
glory, and on the very spot of its origin." 

What New England heart was there but throbbed 
with vehement, tumultuous, irrepressible emotion, as 
he dwelt upon New England sufferings. New England 
struggles, and New England triumphs during the war 
of the Revolution ? There was scarcely a dry e3"e in 
the Senate ; all hearts were overcome ; grave judges 
and men grown old in dignified life turned aside their 
heads, to conceal the evidences of their emotion. 



DANIEL "WEBSTER. 59 



In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group 
of Massachusetts men. They had hung from the first 
moment upon the words of the speaker, with feelings 
variously but always warmly excited, deepening 
in intensity as he proceeded. At first, while the 
orator was going through his exordium, they held 
their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the 
savage attack upon him and New England, and the 
fearful odds against him, her champion ; — as he went 
deeper into his speech, they felt easier; when he 
turned Hayne's flank on Banquo's ghost, they breathed 
freer and deeper. But now, as he alluded to Massa- 
chusetts, their feelings were strained to the highest 
tension ; and when the orator, concluding his enco- 
mium upon the land of their birth, turned, inten- 
tionally, or otherwise, his burning eye full upon them, 
they shed tears like girls I 

No one who was not present can understand the 
excitement of the scene. No one, who was, can give 
an adequate description of it. No word-painting can 
convey the deep, intense enthusiasm, the reverential 
attention, of the vast assembly — nor limner transfer 
to canvas their earnest, eager, awe-struck counte- 
nances. Though language were as subtle and flexible 
as thought, it still would be impossible to represent 
the full idea of the scene. There is something in- 
tangible in an emotion, which cannot be transferred. 
The nicer shades of feeling elude pursuit. Every 
description, therefore, of the occasion, seems to the 
narrator himself most tame, spiritless, unjust. 

Much of the instantaneous effect of the speech 
arose, of course, from the orator's delivery — the tones 



GO MEMORIALS OF 



of his voice, bis countenance, and manner.* These 
die mostly with the occasion that calls them forth — 
the impression is lost in the attempt at transmission 
from one mind to another. They can only he de- 
scribed in general terms. " Of the eflfectiveness of 
Mr. Webster's manner, in many parts," says Mr. 
Everett, " it would be in vain to attempt to give any 
one not present the faintest idea. It has been my for- 
tune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the greatest 
living orators on both sides of the water, but I must 
confess, I never heard any thing which so completely 
realized my conception of what Demosthenes was 
when he delivered the Oration for the Crown." 

Assuredly, Kean nor Kemble, nor any other mas- 
terly delineator of the human passions ever produced 
a more powerful impression upon an audience, or 
swayed so completely their hearts. This was acting^ 
— not to the life. — but life itself 



* The personal appearance of Mr. Webster has been a theme 
of frequent discussion. He was at the time this speech was de- 
livered twenty years younger than now. Time had not thinned 
nor bleached his hair : it was as dark as the raven's plumage, 
surmoiinting his massive brow in ample folds. His eyes, always 
dark and deep set, enkindled by some glowing thought, shone 
from beneath his sombre, overhanging brow like lights, in the 
blackness of night, from a sepulchre. It was such a countenance 
as Salvator Rosa delighted to paint. 

No one understood, or understands, better than Mr. "Webster, 
the philosophy of dress ; what a powerful auxiliary it is to 
speech and manner, when harmonizing with them. On this oc- 
casion he appeared in a blue coat and buff vest, — the Kevolution- 
ary colors of buff and blue ; — with a white cravat ; a costume, 
than which none is more becoming to his face and expression. 
This courtly particularity of dress adds no little to the influence 
of his manner and appearance. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 61 



No one ever looked the orator, as he did — " os 
humerosque deo similis^^'' in form and feature how 
like a god. His countenance spake no less audibly 
than his words. His manner gave new force to his 
language. As he stood swaying his right arm, like a 
huge tilt-hammer, up and down, his swarthy counte- 
nance lighted up with excitement, he appeared amid 
the smoke, the fire, the thunder of his eloquence, like 
Vulcan in his armory forging thoughts for the gods ! 

The human face never wore an expression of more 
withering, relentless scorn, than when the orator re- 
plied to Hayne's allusion to the " murdered coalition." 
" It is," said Mr. W., " the very cast-off slough of a 
polluted tind shameless press. Incapable of fur- 
ther mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and 
despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the 
honorable member to give it dignity or decency, by 
attempting to elevate it, and introduce it into the 
Senate. He cannot change it from what it is — an 
object of general disgust and scorn. On the con- 
trary, the contact, if he choose to touch it, is more 
likely to drag him down, down to the place where it 
lies itself" He looked, as he spoke these words, as 
if the thing he alluded to was too mean for scorn 
itself — and the sharp, stinging enunciation made the 
words still more withering. The audience seemed 
relieved, — so crushing was the expression of his face 
which they held on to, as 'twere, spell-bound, — when 
he turned to other topics. 

The good-natured yet provoking irony with which 
he described the imaginary though lifelike scene of 
direct collision between the marshalled array of 



62 MEMORIALS OF 



South Carolina under General Hayne on one side, and 
the officers of the United States on the other, nettled 
his opponent even more than his severer satire ; it seem- 
ed so ridiculously true, that Col. Hayne inquired, with 
some degree of emotion, if the gentleman from Mas- 
sachusetts intended any 2>e7-sonai imputation by such 
remarks? To which Mr. Webster replied, with per- 
fect good humor, " Assuredly not — ^just the reverse." 

The variety of incident during the speech, and 
the rapid fluctuation of passions, kept the audience 
in continual expectation and ceaseless agitation. There 
was no chord of the heart the orator did not strike, as 
with a master hand. The speech was a com23lete 
drama of comic and pathetic scenes ; one varied ex- 
citement : laughter and tears gaining alternate victory. 

A great portion of the speech is strictly argumen- 
tative ; an exposition of constitutional law. But grave 
as such portion necessarily is, severely logical, abound- 
ing in no fancy or episode, it engrossed throughout 
the undivided attention of every intelligent hearer. 
Abstractions, under the glowing genius of the orator, 
acquired a beauty, a vitality, a power to thrill the 
blood and enkindle the affections, awakening into 
earnest activity many a dormant faculty. His pon- 
derous syllables had an energy, a vehemence of mean- 
ing in them that fascinated, while they startled. His 
thoughts, in their statuesque beauty merely, would have 
gained all critical judgment ; but he realized the 
antique fable, and warmed the marble into life. There 
was a sense of power in his language — of power with- 
held and suggestive of still greater power, — that 
subdued, as by a spell of mystery, the hearts of all. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. C3 



For power, whether intellectual or physical, produces 
in its earnest development a feeling closely allied to 
awe. It was never more felt than on this occasion. 
It had entire mastery. The sex, which is said to 
love it best and abuse it most, seemed as much or 
more carried away than the sterner one. Many who 
had entered the hall with light gay thoughts, antici- 
pating at most a pleasurable excitement, soon became 
deeply interested in the speaker and his subject — 
surrendered him their entire heart ; and, when the 
speech was over, and they left the hall, it was with 
gadder, perhaps, but, surely, with far more elevated 
and ennobling emotions. 

The exulting rush of feeling with which he went 
through the peroration, threw a glow over his 
countenance, like inspiration. Eye, brow, each fea- 
ture, every line of the face seemed touched, as with a 
celestial fire. All gazed, as at something more than 
human. So Moses might have appeared to the awe- 
struck Israelites, as he emerged from the dark clouds 
and thick smoke of Sinai, his face all radiant with 
the breath of divinity ! 

The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the 
ears of the spell-bound audience, in deep and melo- 
dious cadence, as waves upon the shore of the '■ far 
resounding" sea. The Miltonic grandeur of his 
words was the fit expression of his thought, and 
raised his hearers up to his theme. His voice, 
exerted to its utmost power, penetrated every re- 
cess and corner of the Senate — penetrated even 
the anterooms and the stairways, as he pronounced 
in deepest tones of pathos these words of solemn 



64 



MEMORIALS OF 




significance : " When my eyes shall be turned to 
behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I 
not see him shining on the broken and dishonored 
fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dis- 
severed, discordant, belligerent ! on a land rent with 
civil feud, or drenched, it ma}^ be, in fraternal blood ! 
Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather 
behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now 
known and honored throughout the earth, still full 
high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in 
their original lustre, not a stripe erased nor polluted, 
not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no 
such miserable interrogatory as, ' What is all this 
worth ? ' Nor those other words of delusion and 
folly, ' Liberty first and Union afterwards ;' but every- 
where, spread all over in characters of living light, 
blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the 
sea and over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every 
American heart. Liberty ajid JJnion^ noiv and for 
e))tr^ 07ie and inseparable I " 

V The speech was over, but the tones of the orator 
still lingered upon the ear, and the audience, uncon- 
scious of the close, retained their positions. The 
agitated countenance, the heaving breast, the suffused 
eye, attested the continued influence of the spell upon 
them. Hands that in the excitement of the moment 
had sought each other, still remained closed in an 
unsonscious grasp. Eye still turned to eye, to receive 
and repay mutual sympathy ; and everywhere around 
seemed forgetfulncss of all but the orator's presence 
and words. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 65 



When the Vice-President, hastening to dissolve 
the spell, angrily called to order ! order ! there 
never was a deeper stillness — not a movement, not a 
gesture had been made — not a whisper uttered. Or- 
der ! Silence could almost have heard itself, it was 
so supernaturally still. The feeling was too over- 
powering to allow expression by voice or hand. It 
was as if one was in a trance, all motion paralyzed. 

But the descending hammer of the Chair awoke 
them, with a start — and with one universal, long- 
drawn, deep breath, with which the overcharged 
heart seeks relief, — the crowded assembly broke up 
and departed. 

The New England men walked down Pennsylva- 
nia Avenue that day, after the speech, with a firmer 
step and bolder air — " pride in their port, defiance in 
their eye." You would have sworn they had grown 
some inches taller in a few hours' time. They de- 
voured the way in their stride. They looked every 
one in the face they met, fearing no contradiction. 
They swarmed in the streets, having become miracu- 
lously multitudinous. They clustered in parties, and 
fought the scene over one hundred times that night. 
Their elation was greater by reaction. It knew no 
limits, or choice of expression. Not one of them but 
felt he had gained a personal victory. Not one, 
who was not ready to exclaim, with gushing eyes, in 
the fulness of gratitude, " Thank God, I too am a 
Yankee !" 

In the evening Gen. Jackson held a levee at the 
White House. It was known, in advance, that Mr. 
Webster would attend it, and hardly had the hospit- 



66 MEMORIALS OF 



able doors of the house been thrown open, when the 
crowd that had filled the Senate-chamber in the morn- 
ing rushed in and occupied the rooms. Persons a 
little more tardy in arriving found it almost impossi- 
ble to get in, such a crowd oppressed the entrance. 

Before this evening, the General had been the 
observed of all observers. His military and personal 
reputation, official position, gallant bearing, and cour- 
teous manners, had secured him great and merited 
popularity. His receptions were always gladly at- 
tended by large numbers — to whom he was himself 
the object of attraction. 

But on this occasion, the room in which he re- 
ceived his company was deserted, as soon as courtesy 
to the President permitted. Mr. Webster, it was 
whispered, was in the East Room, and thither the 
whole mass hurried. 

He stood almost in the centre of the room, 
hemmed in by eager crowds, from whom there was no 
escape, all pressing to get nearer to him. He seemed 
but little exhausted by the intellectual exertion of 
the day, severe as it had been. The flush of excite- 
ment still lingered and played upon his countenance, 
gilding and beautifying it like the setting sun its ac- 
companying clouds. 

All were eager to get a sight at him. Some 
stood on tip-toe, and some even mounted the chairs 
of the room. Many were presented to him. The 
dense crowd entering and retiring, moved round him, 
renewing the order of their ingression and egression, 
continually. One would ask his neighbor : " Where 
— which is Webster?" — " There, don't you see him — 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 67 



that dark, swarthy man, with a great deep eye and 
heavy brow — that's Webster." No one was obliged 
to make a second inquiry. 

In another part of the room was Col. Hayne. 
He, too, had his day of triumph, and received con- 
gratulations. His friends even now contended that 
the contest was but a drawn battle, no full victory 
having been achieved on either side. There was 
nothing in his own appearance this evening to indi- 
cate the mortification of defeat. With others, he 
went up and complimented Mr. Webster on his bril- 
liant effort ; and no one, ignorant of the past strug- 
gle, could have supposed that they had late been en- 
gaged in such fierce rivalry. It was said at the time, 
that, as Col. Hayne approached Mr. Webster to ten- 
der his congratulations, the latter accosted him with 
the usual courtesy, " How are you, this evening. Col. 
Hayne?" and that Col. Hayne replied, good-humor- 
edly, " None the better' for you^ sirP' 

The speech of Mr. Webster on this occasion is so 
familiar to the whole country, and this extended ex- 
tract gives so complete a picture of its general scope, 
that any more specific outline of it would be superflu- 
ous. In mere logic, it has often been surpassed : — 
but as a reply to a violent attack, — as a defence 
against a vehement and formidable assault, — and 
as combining all the various qualities which such an 
efi"ort demands, it is unrivalled in the forensic his- 
tory of this country, and has seldom been surpassed 
anywhere. As a masterpiece in' this special depart- 
ment of eloquence, it deserves careful study ; and al- 
though a severe analysis of it may detract something 



C8 MEMORIALS OF 



from the popular estimate of its character, as com- 
pared with the great speeches of the master Orators 
of the world, it will only quicken the admiration 
which it deserves for felicity of retort, adroitness in 
turning the flanks of the attacking force, the logical 
consecutiveness of its historical statements, and the 
grand, stately, imaginative eloquence of its rhetorical 
passages. No one can read both speeches without 
feeling that Hayne's did not deserve such a reply ; 
and that the two athletes were most unequally 
matched. Col. Hayne replied to Mr. Webster, con- 
fining himself, however, to the single point of the 
rights of the General Government under the Consti- 
tution. Mr. Webster rejoined in a brief restatement 
of his argument : — but this restatement was in fact 
a reconstruction of it. He presented it now divested 
of all the incidental matter by which it had original- 
ly been embarrassed, and without any of the rhetori- 
cal attendants which had swollen its stateliness and 
rendered it far more impressive and imposing, but 
which nevertheless impaired its real strength. As an 
argument merely, we consider this second speech, 
brief and unpretending as it is, decidedly superior to 
the first, in the popularity of which, however, it has 
been completely overshadowed. Mr. Webster's ''great 
speech," as it is universally known, produced a great 
sensation throughout the country. It was widely cir- 
culated and universally read. The debate continued 
for some weeks, but the argument had been exhaust- 
ed, and the discussion was really at an end. Mr. 
Webster received from every quarter of the Union 
the most complimentary congratulations upon the re- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 69 



suit of the contest, and upon the service he had ren- 
dered the country. Massachusetts passed resolutions 
of thanks, and the example was followed by the Le- 
gislatures of several other States. Distinguished 
Southern gentlemen added the tribute of their praise. 

MR. WEBSTER AND NULLIFICATION. 

Mr. Webster continued to take an active part in 
the business and debates of the Senate throughout 
the administration of Greneral Jackson and his im- 
mediate successor. This period of our history was 
marked by events of magnitude and permanent im- 
portance. As the characteristic of General Jackson's 
mind was an indomitable will, so his administration 
was marked by an exaltation of the Executive at the 
expense of every other department of the Grovern- 
ment. Whenever he fixed upon a measure as desi- 
rable, the whole power at his command, personal and 
ofl&cial, was directed to its enforcement. In one of 
his Messages, indeed, in reply to objections that the 
will of the people, as represented in Congress, should 
be paramount in all cases of legislation, he advanced 
the distinct claim that the popular sovereignty was 
in fact embodied in the President, as he was elected 
by a direct vote of all the people. This principle, and 
the spirit which it indicated, began to manifest them- 
selves in various acts of the administration, and to 
arouse no slight degree of opposition to its arbitrary 
character throughout the country. 

General Jackson had been elected by the union 
of various parties. Mr. Adams, his unsuccessful com- 



70 MEMORIALS OF 



petitor, in a letter written in 1836, but which has but 
recently been published in the New-York Daily 
Times^ ascribes his defeat to the union of four 
distinct parties against him. '• At the election of 
1825," he says: ''There were four candidates, three 
of whom were returned to the House of Represen- 
tatives — besides a fifth, who had sunk by his own 
weight into the secondary rank of an aspirant to 
the Vice-Presidency — in which he succeeded for the 
moment, by the ruin of his after-prospects, I believe, 
for ever. My election was effected in the House by 
the junction of the fourth and excluded candidate's 
supporters with mine, and that operation produced 
the subsequent failure of my re-election, the trium- 
phal elevation of my successor, and the irretrievable 
disappointment of him who had, as a last resource, 
linked his political fortunes with mine, but who, from 
that hour, was deserted and betrayed by his own 
party. They gained the coalition of the three pre- 
ceding disappointed candidates, and thus left me at 
the election of 1828 to my own solitary strength. 
That remained unimpaired, but was unequal to the 
contest with the united power of the four parties 
combined against me, and I fell." It was scarcely 
possible that this union should long exist unimpaired 
after the success for which it had been formed had 
brought responsibility to be incurred and duties to 
be performed. Mr. Calhoun, whose friendship) had 
been indicated, if not purchased, by being elected 
Vice-President, speedily found that he could have in 
that position no special influence or control in the 
Government ; and the exclusion of all his friends 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



71 



from the Cabinet, and the appointment, as Secretary 
of State, of Mr. Van Biiren, who was Mr. Calhoun's 
rival for the succession, and as such favored by Gene- 
ral Jackson, completed the alienation. Private dif- 
ferences aggravated the quarrel, and it soon became 
open and violent. Mr. Van Buren, disliking all ele- 
ments of strife, resigned the Secretaryship, and ac- 
cepted the Mission to England. But, while in office, 
he had given Mr. McLane, then our Minister to the 
Court of St. James, instructions to seek concessions 
in regard to our trade with the British colonies, and 
to represent, as an inducement to the British Govern- 
ment to grant them, that the party which had come 
into power would be found more favorable to certain 
interests which Great Britain wished to secure. 
When, therefore, his nomination came before the 
Senate, its confirmation was strongly opposed by Mr. 
Webster, who in this had the concurrence of Mr. 
Calhoun ; and it was rejected. 

In the Twenty-second Congress the Bank question 
became prominent. At the first session (1831-2), a 
bill had been introduced by Mr. Dallas, providing for 
a recharter. Mr. Webster supported the bill, upon 
the ground that the Bank was highly important to 
the fiscal operations of the Government, and to the 
currency, exchange and general business of the coun- 
try. The President had called the attention of Con- 
gress to the subject, without intimating any doubts 
of the constitutionality of the Bank. No complaints 
had been made of its management ; it was in good 
Ci'edit at home and abroad, and was generally popular 
as an important agent in the financial operations of 



72 MEMORIALS OF 



the country. The President, however, had endeavored 
to control the appointment of some of the officers in 
one of the Eastern branches, and this attempt had 
been resisted. This difference created a feeling of 
hostility and of mutual suspicion between the Presi- 
dent and the Bank, and led to that open warfare 
which convulsed the country for some years. The 
bill passed both Houses, and was vetoed by General 
Jackson. 

Meantime the interest in this subject was super- 
seded by another of more pressing importance. In 
South Carolina discontent under the Tariff had 
greatly increased. Under the operation of the va- 
rious protective tariffs which had been enacted with 
the concurrence, and generally under the lead of the 
South, a large manufacturing interest had grown up 
in the Northern and Central States, — while the South 
had not experienced similar benefits from them. 
Large tracts of new lands recently opened to settle- 
ment near the Mississippi, had drawn from the worn- 
out sections along the Atlantic great numbers of their 
people, and the injurious results of this process, as 
well as of other circumstances, were attributed to the 
Tariff. Public resentment at the South had been 
thus turned against the principle of protection, and 
its constitutionality had been strongly denied. The 
feelins: of discontent had led to the most hostile Ian- 
miase, and Mr. Calhoun, with other leading men in 
the same section of the country, had distinctly assert- 
ed the right of any State to resist and nullify laws 
which she might conceive unconstitutional or in vio- 
lation of her rights. Mr. Webster had repeatedly 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 73 

met Mr. Calhoun in argument upon this question, 
and had always maintained the supremacy of the 
Constitution and of the Supreme Court in the United 
States as the final interpreter of its provisions. In 
some of his speeches, especially in one made on the 
26th of January, 1830, Mr. Webster made a trium- 
phant vindication of the position he had taken upon 
this subject. 

Greneral Jackson was, however, re-elected Presi- 
dent in the fall of 1832 ; and the people of South Ca- 
rolina were at once roused into the most intense ex- 
citement against the North and the protective policy. 
Public meetings were held throughout the State, and 
at a general convention, an Ordinance was adopted, 
declaring the unconstitutionality of the tariff laws, 
and proclaiming the purpose of South Carolina to re- 
sist any attempt that might be made to collect taxes 
under them within the limits of that State. The 
Legislature, which met soon after, ratified the Ordi- 
nance ; declared the Tariff acts unconstitutional, null, 
and void ; directed the enrolment and enlistment of 
volunteers, and advised all the citizens to put them- 
selves in military array. The whole State was in 
arms. Musters were held every day. Charleston 
looked like a military depot, and an immediate colli- 
sion between the State and National forces was ap- 
prehended. Colonel Hayne resigned his seat in the 
United States Senate, and was elected Governor of 
South Carolina. Mr. Calhoun resigned the Vice- 
Presidency, and succeeded Hayne in the Senate. 
Congress met early in December, and the vacant 
chair was filled by the election of Hugh L. White, of 
4 



74 - MEMORIALS OF 



Tennessee, over John Tyler, of Virginia — White re- 
ceiving seventeen, and Tyler fourteen votes. Mr. 
Calhoun had not arrived, and rumors were afloat that 
General Jackson had threatened to arrest him on his 
way, for treason against the Government. What 
course, indeed, the President would take was not 
known, but it had been the topic of current rumor 
for some months previous. Mr. Webster in October, 
had met the citizens of Massachusetts in a public 
meeting at Worcester, and had there rehearsed the 
dangers of the country, re-asserted the supremacy of 
the Constitution, and claimed for Congress the power 
of providing for the emergency. He raised his voice 
" beforehand, against the unauthorized employment of 
military power, and against suspending the authority 
of the laws, by an armed force, under the pretence of 
putting down nullification." Referring to a rumor of 
General Jackson's intended action, which had been 
widely current, he said : " The President has no au- 
thority to blockade Charleston ; the President has no 
authority to employ military force, till he shall be 
duly required to do so by law and by the civil au- 
thority. His duty is to cause the laws to be exe- 
cuted. His duty is to support the civil authority. 
His duty is, if the laws be resisted, to employ the 
military force of the country, if necessary, for their 
support and execution : but to do all this in compli- 
ance only with law and with decisions of tribunals." 
The course pursued by the people of South Carolina 
roused the President from the inactivity which had 
only concealed, but had not prevented, a vigilant pre- 
paration for the rising storm. Confidential orders 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 75 



were issued to the officers of the Army and Navy to 
hold themselves in readiness for active service. Ge- 
neral Winfield Scott was sent to Charleston, to take 
such steps as he might deem necessary to preserve 
the authority of the Grovernment. Prudent and re- 
solute men were stationed at the proper posts ; arms 
and munitions of war were provided, and due prepa- 
ration was made for all contingencies. On the 11th 
of December, 1832, the President issued a Proclama- 
tion, written by Mr. Edward Livingston, who had 
succeeded Mr. Van Buren as Secretary of State, 
from notes furnished by General Jackson himself; 
and taking, substantially, the ground which Mr. Web- 
ster had uniformly maintained in debate upon the 
subject. A counter-Proclamation was at once is- 
sued by Governor Hayne ; and laws were at once 
passed by the Legislature for putting the State in a 
condition to carry on war with the General Govern- 
ment. United States troops were collected at va- 
rious points ; and on the other side, the militia were 
drilled, muskets cleaned, foreign officers tendered 
their services to the Governor, and every thing indi- 
cated the speedy approach of civil war. At a large 
meeting of Nullifiers, held at Charleston, Colonel 
Preston, one of their leading men, set forth the state 
of the case by declaring that '• there were sixteen 
thousand back-countrymen with arms in their hands 
and cockades in their hats, ready to march to that 
city at a moment's notice ; and the moment Congress 
shall pass the laws recommended by the President in 
relation to our port, I will pour down a torrent of 
volunteers, that shall sweejD the myrmidons of the 



76 MEMORIALS OF 



tyrant from the soil of Carolina." Mr. Calhoun did 
not reach Washington until January. On the 4th of 
that month he took his seat in the Senate, received 
the congratulations of the members of that body, and, 
in the midst of a crowded and eager assembly, took the 
oath to support the Constitution of the United States. 
In a few days he moved for a call upon the President 
for copies of the Proclamation, and of the counter-Pro- 
clamation of Governor Hayne. These were communi- 
cated by the President on the 16th of January ; and on 
the 21st the '■'Force BiU^^ as it was called, " making 
further provision for the collection of the revenue," was 
reported by Mr. Wilkins, from Pennsylvania, on behalf 
of the Judiciary Committee. It gave the President the 
largest powers over the men and money of the nation, 
to put down any armed resistance to the revenue 
laws of the United States. Upon this bill, and up- 
on resolutions which he introduced, embodying his 
general views on the right of a State to annul uncon- 
stitutional laws of Congress, Mr. Calhoun made, on 
the 15th and 16th of February, the ablest argument 
ever advanced in support of his position. The de- 
bate, previous to that time, had been shared by va- 
rious Senators, and had been marked by various in- 
cidents. Mr. Webster had maintained silence, ex- 
cept in one or two instances, where he had thrown in 
a suggestion upon some incidental point. Of this 
nature was a remark which he made, when there 
seemed to be a general disposition to attack tJie hill^ 
passing over the proclamation. Mr. Webster desired 
it should be known, once for all, " that this was an 
Administration measure ; tliat it is the President's 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 77 



own measure ; and I pray, gentlemen," said he, " to 
have the goodness, if they call it hard names, and 
talk boldly against its friends, not to overlook its 
source. Let them attack it, if they choose to attack 
it. in its origin." He had declined an invitation to 
speak upon the subject, so long as Mr. Calhoun had 
kept silent, or so long as the advantage in debate 
seemed to rest on the other side. But Mr. Calhoun's 
speech on this occasion called him out. 

Mr. Calhoun's speech was awaited with great 
anxiety, and heard with eager interest. He was con- 
sidered, beyond the bounds of his own State and 
party, as a bold, bad man. An all-devouring, un- 
scrupulous personal ambition was popularly supposed 
to have driven him into this position of a conspirator 
against the Constitution. He was daily denounced 
as John Catiline Calhoun, by the special organ of 
the President, the Globe^ and by the people at large 
he was feared as such. His personal appearance, as 
is remarked by the author already largely quoted, 
" answered well the preconceived idea of a conspira- 
tor. Tall, gaunt, and of a somewhat stooping figure, 
with a brow full, well-formed but receding : hair, not 
reposing on the head, but starting from it like the 
Gorgon's ; a countenance, expressive of unqualified 
intellect, the lines of which seemed deeply gullied by 
intense thought ; an eye that watched every thing 
and revealed nothing, ever inquisitive, restless and 
penetrating ; and a manner emphatic, yet restrained, 
determined but cautious ; persons who knew not his 
antecedents, nor his actual position, would have point- 
ed him out as one that might meditate great and dan- 



^fi. 



78 MEMORIALS OF 

gerous pursuits. To an audience, alread}- embittered, 
he seemed to realize the full idea of a conspirator." 
His speech was a master-piece of direct, simple, un- 
adorned argumentation. It very far surpassed, in 
every respect, the previous effort of Mr. Hayne. Its 
tone was that of injured innocence, — claiming always 
that South Carolina was the party wronged, repelling, 
with calm and sorrowful dignity, the imputations 
which had been thrown out against himself, lamenting 
plaintively th.e decay of fraternal feeling between dif- 
ferent members of the Union, and sustaining by an 
elaborate argument of great cogency, the right of a 
State — not to resist the Constitution, not even to 
judge of the exercise by the General Government of 
any power which it delegates — but to repudiate ut- 
terly every assumption of power not delegated, and 
to resist, as null and void, every law that may be 
passed under any such assumption. His speech ex- 
tended through two days : — and he closed by chal- 
lenging the opponents of his doctrine to disprove 
them, and warned them, in the concluding sentence, 
that the principles they might advance would be sub- 
jected to the revision of posterity. 

Mr. Webster rose immediately and entered upon 
a reply. He had been looked to, not only by his own 
political friends, but by the President and his party, as 
the champion upon whom would devolve the defence 
of the ground they had taken. The bill had received 
prompt modification, in several respects, upon his re- 
quirement, — and had thus been brought into more 
full conformity with the views he had expressed at 
Worcester. His speech on this occasion is one of the 



DANIEL WEBSTER. Y9 

best lie ever made. Less showy, it is more logical, 
than his reply to Hayne, and although it produced a 
less powerful impression at the time upon the audi- 
ence which heard it, it will be far more frequently re- 
ferred to hereafter for the argument it embodies. 
He stated the theory of Mr. Calhoun in a few brief 
sentences, stripping it of all the qualifications by 
which that master of language and of thought had 
concealed its real meaning. 

" Beginning with the original error, that the Con- 
stitution of the United States is nothing but a com- 
pact between Sovereign States ; asserting in the next 
step, that each State has a right to be its own sole 
judge of the extent of its own obligations, and, conse- 
quently, of the constitutionality of laws of Congress ; 
and in the next, that it may oppose whatever it sees 
fit to declare unconstitutional, and that it decides for 
itself on the mode and measure of redress, the argu- 
ment arrives at once at the conclusion, that what a 
State dissents from, it may nullify ; what it opposes, 
it may oppose by force ; what it decides for itself, it 
may execute by its own power ; and that, in vshort, it 
is itself supreme over the legislation of Congress, and 
supreme over the decisions of the national judicature 
— supreme over the Constitution of the country — su- 
preme over the supreme law of the land. However 
it seeks to protect itself against these plain inferences, 
by saying that an unconstitutional law is no law, and 
that it only opposes such laws as are unconstitutional, 
yet this does not, in the slightest degree, vary the re- 
sult, since it insists on deciding this question for 
itself; and, in opposition to reason and argument, in 



80 MEMOIilALS OF 

opposition to practice and experience, in opposition 
to the judgment of others having an equal right to 
judge, it says only : ' Such is my opinion, and my 
opinion shall be my law, and I ^ ill support it by my 
own strong hand. I denounce the law. I declare it 
unconstitutional ; that is enough ; it shall not be exe- 
cuted. Men in arms are ready to resist its execution. 
An attempt to enforce it shall cover the land with 
blood. Elsewhere, it may be binding ; but here, it is 
trampled under foot.' This, Sir, is practical nullifi- 
cation." 

Against these positions Mr. Webster laid down a 
system embodied in the following propositions : 

I. That the Constitution of the United States is 
not a league, confederacy, or compact, between the 
people of the several States in their sovereign capaci- 
ties ; but a Government proper, founded on the adop- 
tion of the people, and creating direct relations be- 
tween itself and individuals. 

II. That no State authority has power to dissolve 
those relations : that nothing can dissolve them but 
revolution ; and that, consequently, there can be no 
such thing as secession without revolution. 

III. That there is a supreme law, consisting of 
the Constitution of the United States, acts of Con- 
gress passed in pursuance of it, and treaties ; and 
that, in cases not capable of assuming the character 
of a suit in law or equity. Congress must judge of, 
and finally interj^ret, this supreme law, so often as it 
has occasion to pass acts of legislation ; and in cases 
capable of assuming, and actually assuming, the cha- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 81 



racter of a suit, the Supreme Court of the United 
States is the final interpreter. 

IV. That an attempt by a State to abrogate, an- 
nul, or nullify an act of Congress, or to arrest its 
operation within her limits, on the ground that, in 
her opinion, such law is unconstitutional, is a direct 
usurpation on the just powers of the General Grovern- 
ment, and on the equal rights of other States ; a 
plain violation of the Constitution, and a proceeding 
essentially revolutionary in its character and ten- 
dency. 

These propositions were maintained with great 
ability, without any attempt at sarcasm, humor, or 
anything but simple argument. The opinion gener- 
ally entertained of its merit and conclusiveness is 
well indicated in a letter written to him very soon 
after its delivery, by Ex-President Madison. As 
Mr. Madison was largely concerned in drafting the 
famous resolutions of 1798, upon which the whole 
State Rights theory is generally based, his opinion 
upon this subject was, and still is, entitled to great 
weight. We think, therefore, that our readers will 
be glad to read his letter to Mr. Webster on that 
occasion, which has hitherto been published only in 
Mr. Everett's biographical sketch, prefixed to the re- 
cent edition of Mr. Webster's Speeches. 

"MoNTPELiEE, March 15, I800, 

'• My Deae, Sir : — I return my thanks, &c., for 
the copy of your late very powerful speech in the 
Senate of the United States. It crushes " nullifica- 
tion," and must hasten an abandonment of " seces- 



82 



MEMORIALS OF 



sion." But this dodges the blow by confounding the 
claim to secede at will with the right of seceding from 
intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, 
being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly 
pledged. The latter is another name only for revolu- 
tion, about which there is no theoretic controversy. 
Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the countenance 
received from certain quarters, is giving it a popular 
currency here, which may influence the approaching 
elections, both for Congress and for the State Legis- 
lature. It has gained some advantage, also, by mix- 
ing itself with the question whether the Constitution 
of the United States was formed by the people, or 
by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by 
animated partisans. 

" It is fortunate when disputed theories can be 
decided by undisputed facts, and here the undisputed 
fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, 
but as embodied into the several States who were 
parties to it — therefore made by the States in their 
highest authoritative capacity. They might, by the 
same authority, and by the same process, have con- 
verted the confederacy into a mere league or treaty, 
or continued it with enlarged or abridged power ; or 
have embodied the people of their respective States 
into one people, nation, or sovereignty ; or, as they 
did, by a mixed form, make them one people, nation, 
or sovereignty, for certain purposes, and not so for 
others. 

'• The Constitution of the United States, being 
established by a competent authority — by that of the 
sovereign people of the several States who were par- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 83 

tics to it — it remains only to inquire what the Con- 
stitution is ; and here it speaks for itself. It organ- 
izes a government into the usual legislative, execu- 
tive, and judiciary departments ; invests it with spe- 
cified powers, leaving others to the parties to the 
Constitution. It makes the government, like other 
governments, to operate directly on the people ; 
places at its command the needful physical means of 
executing its powers ; and, finally, proclaims its supre- 
macy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, 
over the constitutions and laws of the States, the 
powers of the government being exercised, as in other 
elective and responsible governments, under the con- 
trol of its constituents, the people and the Legisla- 
tures of the States, and subject to the revolutionary 
rights of the people in extreme cases. 

" Such is the Constitution of the United States, 
de jure and de facto ^ and the name, whatever it be, 
that may be given to it, can make it nothing more or 
less than what it is. 

" Pardon this hasty effusion, which, whether pre- 
cisely according or not with your ideas, presents, I am 
aware, none that will be new to you. 

" With great esteem and cordial salutations, 

"JAMES MADISON. 

"Mr. Webster," 

The bill, as is well known, passed — with the vote 
of John Tyler alone, in the negative ; its other op- 
ponents having, from various reasons, left the Se- 
nate Chamber before the vote was taken. It is of 
course scarcely necessary to add, that Mr. Clay had 



84 MEM OKI A LS OF 



taken no part in this great debate, having been 
anxiously and laboriously engaged in elaborating and 
preparing the way for the Compromise^ by which the 
dispute was at last adjusted. Mr. Webster's course 
in this crisis, commanded the warm approbation of 
General Jackson, who felt the extent of the service 
thus rendered to his administration. He took an 
early opportunity, in person, to express his cordial 
gratitude for his support, and his Secretary of State, 
Mr. Livingston, repeatedly made similar acknowledg- 
ments. It has been alleged that, mainly at Mr. Liv- 
ingston's suggestion, Gleneral Jackson was strongly 
disposed to seek an alliance with Mr. Webster, founded 
upon the community of their principles upon this 
subject, which should extend to the whole of General 
Jackson's administration. It is alleged, on good 
authority, that Mr. Livingston, with the President's 
consent, consulted Mr. Webster upon the subject, and 
that a seat in the Cabinet was at the same time placed 
at his disposal. One fact, bearing upon this subject, 
is given by Mr. March, as upon authority. He states 
that a distinguished Senator, a political and personal 
friend of General Jackson, brought to Mr. Webster 
a list of intended nominees for office in the Eastern 
States, and asked him to erase therefrom the names- 
of any who might be personally objectionable to him. 
This he declined to do, from an unwillingness to place, 
himself under any obligation to the Administration, 
which might at all interfere with the freedom of his 
action. No one can avoid speculating as to the dif- 
ferent political fortunes which might have overtaken 
the country, had the stern energy of Gen. Jackson 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 85 



and the profound wisdom of Mr. Webster, been 
united in directing its destiny. 

THE BANK CONTROVERSY. 

The next great topic which enlisted public atten- 
tion was well calculated, — and its introduction, by the 
leaders of the Democratic party, it has been charged, 
was designed — to render any such co-operation between 
these two commanding spirits out of the question. 
Mr. Webster, at the close of the session, made a short 
journey to the Middle and Western States. He was 
received everywhere with the most distinguished 
attention, being greeted by public meetings in all the 
principal cities, and making at various points addresses 
upon topics of public interest. Gen. Jackson also made 
a Northern tour during the same recess of Congress ; 
and it was during that period that the removal of the 
public deposits from the Bank of the United States 
was determined on. It was carried into effect in Sep- 
tember, 1833, and its immediate effect upon the busi- 
ness of the country was most disastrous. Congress 
met two months after: and one of the earliest move- 
ments in the Senate was the offering of a resolution 
by Mr. Clay, calling on the President for a copy of a 
paper said to have been read by him at a Cabinet 
meeting in regard to the removal of the deposits on 
the 18th of September. He supported the resolution 
in an animated speech, and it was adopted by a vote of 
23 to 18, — the State-Rights men, on this occasion, 
abandoning General Jackson, and leaving the Ad- 
ministration in a minority. The President, in reply 



86 MEMORIALS OF 



to the resolutiou, declared his independence of the 
Senate, as a co-ordinate branch of the Government ; 
and he '' had yet to learn under what constituted 
authority that branch of the Legislature had a right 
to require of him an account of any communication, 
either verbally or in writing, made to the heads of 
Departments in Cabinet Council." He therefore 
declined to comply with the request contained in the 
resolution. In the paper thus called for he had de- 
clared that he had decided upon the measure in 
question, and should carry it into effect upon his own 
responsibility, and without requiring any member of 
his Cabinet to make any sacrifice of opinion or of 
principle. For this he was severely denounced by 
the Opposition. Mr. Clay offered resolutions of sub- 
stantial censure, and supported them in one of the 
ablest speeches he ever made. After a long and 
vehement debate, the resolutions, considerably modi- 
fied by its author, passed the Senate, — one of them 
by a vote of 26 to 20, and the other 28 to 18. In 
the discussion upon these resolutions Mr. Webster 
took no part. But in reply to them, General Jackson 
sent to the Senate on the 17th of April, 1834, his 
memorable Protest, in which he argued with great 
ability, 1st, that the Executive, under the Constitution 
and the laws, is the sole custodian of the public funds ; 
2dly,that even on the supposition that he had assumed 
an illegal power, he was amenable to the action of 
either House, only through the constitutional process 
of impeachment ; 3dly, that the President alone is 
responsible to the People alone for the conduct of all 
the subordinate Executive Officers, while they in turn 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 87 



are responsible only to him ; and 4th, that he is the 
direct, immediate representative of the people. This 
formidable document, and the claim it preferred to 
the most extraordinary powers, aroused profound sen- 
sation, not only in the Senate, but throughout the 
country. 

On the 7th of May, Mr. Webster delivered a 
speech upon the subject, in which he subjected every 
portion of that remarkable paper to the severest 
examination. At the opening and the close of his 
remarks he took occasion to disavow, in the most 
earnest manner, everything like personal or partisan 
feeling against the President, a man who, he said, 
'• has rendered most distinguished services to his 
country, and whose honesty of motive and integrity 
of purpose are still maintained by those who admit 
that his administration has fallen into lamentable 
errors." But he regarded the doctrines of the Pro- 
test as at war with all sound principles of constitu- 
tional liberty, and as indicating a tendency on the 
part of the Executive towards a despotic usurpation 
of powers belonging to other departments, which 
called for the most prompt and determined resistance. 
Even if no harm should result from the claim, still it 
ought not to be allowed to pass unchallenged. '' It 
was against the recital of an act of Parliament, ra- 
ther than against any suffering under its enactment, 
that our fathers took up arms. They went to war 
against a preamble. They fought seven years against 
a declaration." Upon this question of principle, 
''while suffering was yet afar off, they raised their 
flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign 



88 MEMORIALS OF 

conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her 
glory, is not to be compared ; — a power which has 
dotted the surface of the whole globe with her pos- 
sessions and military posts, whose morning drum- 
beat, following the sun, and keeping company with 
the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and 
unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." — 
Mr. Webster asserted and vindicated, in the clearest 
manner, not only the right, but the duty, of the Sen- 
ate, to defend the public liberty against encroach- 
ment, and to express its opinions whenever it believed 
such encroachment to have taken place. The Senate 
had acted in its legislative, and not in its judicial 
capacity, and in this action it had only defended its 
own just authority and that of the co-ordinate branch 
of the Legislature. He examined closely, and de- 
nounced with majestic emphasis, the extraordinary 
doctrines put forward by the President concerning 
the theory of his relations to the other branches of 
the Government, and to the People, — declaring that 
if these doctrines were true, it was " idle to talk any 
longer about any such thing as a government of laws. 
We have no government of laws — we have no legal 
responsibility. We have an Executive, consisting of 
one person, wielding all official power, and responsi- 
ble only as Cromwell was responsible when he broke 
up Parliament, or Bonaparte when he dissolved the 
Assembly of France." 

The speech elicited the warmest commendations 
from distinguished men in every section of the coun- 
try. Chancellor Kent exhausted the language of 
eulogy in extolling its merits. Governor Tazewell, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 89 

of Virginia, who had seldom concurred with Mr. 
Webster in his views upon public topics, thanked him 
cordially, and declared that he agreed with him 
throughout. During the same session Mr. Webster 
made frequent speeches upon various topics of interest, 
as they arose in the course of business, and wrote 
also a very able report on the Finances, on behalf of 
the Committee, of which he was a member. In 1835 
he spoke at length upon the French Spoliation bill ; — 
the power of removal from and appointments to office, 
insisting that the President could not rightfully 
remove from office without the consent of the Senate ; 
and upon resolutions proposed by Mr. Benton, pro- 
viding for the national defence, and especially upon 
the action the President had taken to secure their 
favorable consideration. He also drew up and pre- 
sented a Protest against the action of the Senate, in 
adopting a motion to expunge from its records the 
resolutions by which, in 1834, it had expressed its 
disapprobation of the President's course in removing 
the deposits. 

In November, 1836, Mr. Van Buren was elected 
President, to succeed G-eneral Jackson. During that 
winter, although the currency question and others, 
which had grown out of it, continued to occupy the at- 
tention of Congress and the country, and although Mr. 
Webster spoke frequently upon them as they came 
up for discussion, no great topic called for special 
effort. In February he accepted an invitation, from 
a very large number of merchants, professional men 
and others in the City of New-York, to attend a large 
public meeting. His speech, delivered on this occa- 



90 MEMORIALS OF 



sion in Niblo's Saloon, on the 15th of March, 1837, 
embraced a comprehensive view of all the measures 
by which General Jackson's administration had been 
distinguished. He sjDoke at length of the Tariff, In- 
ternal Improvements, &c., and called the attention of 
the country to the movements which were on foot for 
the annexation of Texas to the United States, He 
declared his opposition to that measure, mainly on 
account of his '• entire unwillingness to do anything 
that should extend the Slavery of the African race, 
on this Continent, or add other Slave-holding States 
to this Union. But the main part of his speech related 
to the action of the Administration in regard to the 
financial condition of the country. After the adjourn- 
ment of Congress, Mr. Webster made a rapid tour 
through the Western States, in the course of which he 
was greeted by the most cordial welcome on the part of 
the people, and addressed large meetings at Wheel- 
ing, Va., Madison, Ind., and other places. 

President Van Buren came into office on the 4th 
of March, 1837. One of his first acts was to call 
an extra session of Congress, which met in September, 
to provide for the serious emergencies created by the 
almost simultaneous suspension of specie payments 
by the banks, throughout the country, in the month 
of May. At the meeting of Congress, the Independ- 
ent Treasury System was brought forward by the 
Administration, which proposed to dispense altoge- 
ther with the aid of banks, to provide a distinct 
set of officers to take charge of the public money, 
and to exact specie in payment of all public dues. 
Mr. Webster opposed the whole sj^stem, as imprac- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 91 



ticable and certain to prove in the highest degree 
injurious to the interests of the country. In a long 
and able speech at that session, he set forth his view 
of the duties of the General Grovernment in regard 
to the Currency. The measure did not pass at the 
extra session. 

At the next regular session, on the 27th of De- 
cember, Mr. Calhoun offered a resolution against the 
interference of Congress with slavery in the District 
of Columbia, declaring that it would be a " direct 
and dangerous attack on the institutions of all the 
slaveholding States." To this Mr. Clay, on the 10th 
of January, 1838, offered a substitute, declaring that 
such interference would " be a violation of the faith 
implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia and 
Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the 
slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable 
tendency to disturb and endanger the Union." Mr. 
Webster opposed both upon the ground that he could 
see nothing in the act of cession, nothing in the Con- 
stitution, and nothing in the history of this or any 
other transaction, implying any limitation upon the 
power of Congress to exercise exclusive jurisdiction 
over the ceded territory in all cases whatsoever. 

On the 16th of January, a bill was introduced 
into the Senate by Mr. Wright, to establish the In- 
dependent Treasury system ; which came up for its 
second reading on the 30th. Mr. Wright, in advo- 
cating the passage of the bill, had taken ground 
against the allegation that Congress had anything to 
do with providing a currency for the people. " Let 
the Government," said he, " attend to its own business, 



92 



MEMORIALS OF 



and let the people attend to theirs. Let the Govern- 
ment take care that it secures a sound currency for 
its own use, and let it leave all the rest to the States 
and to the people." These " ominous sentences " were 
the key-note of the speech which Mr. Webster made 
in opposition to the bill on the next day. He de- 
nounced the sentiment which they expressed as utterly 
unbecoming a Republican Government, and opposed 
the bill as in the highest degree injurious to the pub- 
lic interest. On the 15th of February, Mr. Calhoun, 
who had, at the extra session, intimated his purpose 
to support the Sub-Treasury Bill, and had issued a 
letter to his constituents upon the subject during the 
recess, replied to Mr. Webster. This elicited from 
Mr. Webster, on the 12th of March, another speech 
on the same subject, much more elaborate and com- 
plete than the first. He discussed at length the re- 
lations of capital and labor in this country, the uses 
of the credit system, the progress of the country in 
agriculture, commerce and manufactures, and the ex- 
tent to which this progress was due to the system of 
credit, and the absolute necessity to both the Govern- 
ment and the people of a sound Bank paper currency. 
He vindicated, by constitutional exposition and by re- 
currence to history, the right of the Government to 
use banks in the custody and transmission of its 
Funds, and pointed out the disastrous consequences 
which could not but result from the introduction of 
so different a system as that which the bill in ques- 
tion proposed to establish. He closed by referring 
to the speech of Mr. Calhoun, and by a very sharp 
examination of the course of that gentleman during 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 93 



his public career. On this and other questions of 
public interest, Mr. Calhoun replied on the 22d of 
March, and spoke disparagingly of Mr. Webster's 
course during the last war with Great Britain. Mr. 
Webster rejoined at once, with force and effect. 

In the Spring of 1839, Mr. Webster visited 
Europe, for the first and only time in his life, — mak- 
ing a hasty tour through England, Scotland and 
France. He was received with marked attention and 
with every mark of the most distinguished consider- 
ation. He attended several public festivals, and 
among them the first Triennial celebration of the 
Royal Agricultural Society at Oxford, on the 18th 
of July. He gave special attention during his tour 
to the condition of Agriculture, to the subject of 
Currency, and to the condition of the laboring classes ; 
and the results of his study of these subjects are trace- 
able in many of his subsequent speeches. 

Previous to his departure, Mr. Webster had pre- 
pared a letter to the Whig National Convention 
which assembled during his absence, withdrawing his 
name as a candidate for the Presidency. General 
Harrison was nominated, and after a few weeks the 
whole country became intensely agitated with the 
contest between him and Mr. Van Buren. Mr. Web- 
ster returned before the election and took an active 
part in the contest. The derangement in the cur- 
rency, the depression of labor which had resulted, 
the apprehensions entertained of the efi'ect of the 
Sub-Treasury System upon the industry of the coun- 
try, and other circumstances, laid the basis for a more 
exciting political cnnvass than the country has ever 



94 MEMORIALS OF 



witnessed before or since. At Saratoga, on the 19th 
of August, 1840, Mr. Webster addressed an immense 
meeting upon these subjects and other issues involved 
in the contest. On the 10th of September, he pre- 
sided over a vast concourse of people assembled at 
Bunker Hill, and read a declaration of " Whig Princi- 
ples and Purposes," which he had drawn up for the 
occasion. On the 28th of September, he made a 
speech from the steps of the Exchange in Wall-street, 
New-York, principally upon the financial issues in- 
volved. And on the 5th of October, he made a very 
eloquent address upon the general subject at Rich- 
mond, Virginia. All these speeches were marked 
by Mr. Webster's characteristics, strong reasoning, 
the utmost felicity of language, and the most impos- 
ing grandeur of manner and of style. With the result 
the country is familiar. General Harrison was elect- 
ed President by an overwhelming popular majority, 
and came into office on the 4th of March, 1841. 

MR. WEBSTER AS SECRETARY OF STATE. 

The inauguration of General Harrison, in 1841, 
was the inauguration of a new era in the life of Mr. 
Webster. Mr. Clay, his great competitor in the po- 
litical race, had distanced him in diplomatic honors. 
The treaty of Ghent had added the fame of the nego- 
tiator to that of the promising orator and statesman, 
which the colossal Kentuckian had been fortunate 
enough to secure in the first stafjes of his career. 
Mr. Webster had graduated in every other depart- 
ment of statesmanship ; had appropriated the highest 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 9.5 



rewards of resplendent success at the bar and in the 
forum ; had won the just renown of patriotism, proved 
equal to the preservation of the Union at an immi- 
nent crisis ; and, indeed, thoroughly matured his 
reputation before he proceeded to still higher exhibi- 
tions of his extraordinary powers. The remaining 
chapters of his biography form a perfect record of the 
most important events in the history of the national 
diplomacy down to the period of the statesman's 
death. In the formation of his Cabinet, General 
Harrison was prompted not only by his personal pre- 
dilections, but by the obvious sense of a large section 
of the Whig party, to make Mr. Webster the nucleus. 
The Treasury Department was accordingly tendered 
to that gentleman, but he declined it, intimating at 
the same time his readiness to accept the Depart- 
ment of State. Notwithstanding the enormous re- 
sponsibility devolving upon the former office, in con- 
sequence of the universal expectation that relief for 
the monetary distresses of the country was to emanate 
from that quarter, it was no consideration of indo- 
lence that induced Mr. Webster to prefer the latter. 
Our foreign relations were as sadly deranged as 
the finances. Mr. Van Buren's administration, so 
far from contributing to their adjustment, had, by 
pursuing the devious and hyper-cautious policy, which 
uniformly marked it, wrapped them in almost hope- 
less confusion. To a majority of the questions re- 
quiring immediate attention Great "Britain was a 
party. Some of these difficulties were of a chronic 
nature ; of others the symptoms were acute. The 
Northeastern Boundary had been the subject of con- 



96 MEMORIALS OF 



troversy for nearly half a century. The treaty of 
1783 had left it involved in obscurity. A convention 
entered into in 1793 had determined a small portion 
of the line, viz. : that reaching from the Atlantic to 
the head-waters of the St. Croix, hut the remainder 
was as unknown as the wilderness through which it 
passed. Another Convention, ten years later, prose- 
cuted the subject further, by endeavoring to fix the 
whole boundary as far as the Rocky Mountains ; but 
the acquisition of Louisiana rendering our Grovern- 
ment doubtful about the extent of its rights at the 
Westward, the negotiation was broken off, until some 
explorations might be made. The matter stood thus 
until the Treaty of Grhent, when it was agreed to ap- 
point a joint Commissioner to survey the line, and, 
in case of any disagreement, to select an arbitrator, 
whose decision should be final. The survey was 
made, and so was the report. There was disagree- 
ment, and while Mr. Clay was Secretary of State, in 
1827, the question was submitted to the arbitrament 
of His Majesty the King of the Netherlands. That 
potentate reported in 1831; and his report was as 
unsatisfactory to the Cabinet of Washington as to 
that of St. James. The parties agreed to disagree ; 
and we need not be surprised that, surrounded as it 
was with financial embarrassments and internal diffi- 
culties, which its own headlong policy had created, 
the Administration of General Jackson found no 
time to proceed with the calendar of unfinished busi- 
ness. A long and desultory correspondence between 
Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of State under Mr. Van Bu- 
ren. and Mr. Fox. the British Envoy, only augmented 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 97 



the trouble. Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secre- 
tary, was characteristically vexatious and difl&cult. 
Proposition after proposition emanated alternately 
from either Government, always involving the notion 
of tedious surveys, and no less tedious arbitrations ; 
but the plan of neither suited the other, and they 
occupied the relations of two divergent orbs, to use 
Mr. Webster's own simile, which had to travel the 
whole circle before they could again meet. Such was 
the state of the whole subject when it descended to 
the Administration of General Harrison, bitterly ag- 
gravated, however, by the impatience and jealousy 
which had sprung up among the residents upon the 
debateable territory. Hostilities were daily expect- 
ed ; and the legislature of Maine had even gone so 
far as to provide for the arming and equipment of a 
large military force, disguised by the name of a " civil 
posse," to defend the supposed American frontier. 
No other than the most energetic action on the part 
of the Federal Government could prevent hostilities. 
The Oregon frontier was also the subject of much 
anxiety, as the territory was rapidly filling with set- 
tlers. Much ill feeling prevailed at the frequent 
visits to which American vessels, on the coast of 
Africa, were subjected by British cruisers, under 
pretence of ascertaining their innocence of the Slave- 
trade. The case of Alexander McLeod, arising out 
of the seizure of the Caroline, in 1837, had, like 
every thing else of real importance, remained un- 
handled by Mr. Van Buren's Cabinet. In fact, a 
point in our external relations had been reached, when 
immediate negotiation was the alternative of war. 
5 



98 MEMORIALS OF 



Oar Minister to London entertained so lively a sense 
of the danger as to notify the Commander of our fleet 
in the Mediterranean of the probable approach of 
hostilities. 

Mr. "Webster found himself face to face with these 
pressing questions when he entered upon his duties. 
He grappled with them at once. The case of Alex- 
ander McLeod was laid before him. in an urgent letter- 
from Mr. Fox, on the 12th of March, 1841. McLeod 
was about to stand a trial for his life before the State 
Courts of New-York, upon a charge of murder. The 
British Government avowed the seizure of the Caro- 
line as an official act, thereby relieving any indivi- 
dual serving under its flag on that occasion of any 
criminal charge, and demanded the release of McLeod. 
Had he been executed, there is no doubt that war 
would have ensued. Mr. Webster, acknowledging the 
justice of the demand, but unable to interfere with 
the legal tribunals of an individual State, notified 
Mr. Fox of his desire to assist in the liberation of 
the prisoner, and Mr. Crittenden, then, as now, Attor- 
ney-General, was dispatched to New-York to assist 
in the defence. A verdict of acquittal solved the 
whole difficulty. 

Early in the summer of 1841, Mr. Webster re- 
opened the question of the Northeastern Boundary, 
by inviting the British Government to negotiate upon 
the new basis of a conventional line. The proposition 
was received at London at the moment when the 
Melbourne Ministry was about to relinquish office ; 
and it met with no response until the following De- 
cember, when Lord Aberdeen, Foreign Secretary in 



DANIEL WEBSTER. QQ 



the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, acquainted Mr. 
Everett, our minister at St. James, with the intention 
of Her Majesty's Grovernment to send a special envoy 
to the United States, in order to adjust all unsettled 
questions. Lord Ashburton, the agent selected, was 
recommended not only by his acquaintance with 
American character and affairs, but by his personal 
friendship for Mr. Webster, formed during the visit 
of the latter to England in 1839. Lord Ashburton 
arrived in Washington in April, 1842. Mr. Webster 
had already applied to the governments of Maine 
and Massachusetts to appoint commissioners who 
should participate in and sanction the negotiation ; 
and the question, with all its collateral issues, was at 
once entered upon. The State papers which ema- 
nated from Mr. Webster in the course of this trans- 
action, are among the most masterly productions of 
American intellect. They embrace the whole ra- 
tionale of the subjects they successively treat, stated 
in terms so lucid, and with judgment so correct, as to 
form a new era in the history of International law. 
The treaty itself, undoubtedly accomplished all that 
could be accomplished at the time. Lord Ashburton 
was not prepared to enter upon the subject of the 
Oregon boundary ; and that was the only question 
which the convention left unsettled. The boundary 
upon the Northeast was fixed on the basis of a con- 
ventional line, approved by the Commissioners of 
Maine and Massachusetts, the parties more imme- 
diately interested. The Right of Search was dis- 
franchised ; and, as a substitute, both nations engaged 
to sustain sufficient squadrons on the African coast 



100 MEMORIALS OF 



to repress the slave trade. An agreement for the re- 
ciprocal surrender of fugitives from justice was 
framed ; and the minor questions, relating to the 
capture of the Caroline and the case of the Creole, 
were the subject of highly satisfactory correspondence, 
which has effectually prevented, and will always, it 
was imagined, discourage a recurrence of similar 
transactions. The labors of the negotiators were ter- 
minated on the 9th of August, 1842, and two days 
after the treaty was laid before the Senate. The 
Committee upon Foreign Relations, of which Hon. 
William C. Rives was chairman, reported it on the 
15th, without amendment, and on the 20th, the Se- 
nate assented to the treaty, unamended, by a vote of 
Yeas 39, Nays 9. Among the affirmative votes we 
find the names of Messrs. J. C. Calhoun, Rufus 
Choate. John M. Clayton, John J. Crittenden, George 
Evans, William R. King, W. P. Mangum, William 
C. Preston, AV. C. Rives, N. P. Tallmadge, Silas 
Wright, Levi Woodbury. In the negative, the only 
notable names were those of Messrs. Benton and 
Buchanan. 

The treaty of Washington, the ratifications of 
which were presently afterwards exchanged in Lon- 
don, classes with the most remarkable State papers of 
the time. The quintuple treaty between the five 
great powers for the suppression of the slave trade, 
w^iicli was signed in Dec. 1841, fell to the ground, in 
the presence of the better suggestions contained in 
the American document. The clause relative to the 
surrender of fugitives, has been reproduced in several 
conventions framed for that specific purpose, between 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 101 



the various states of Europe. Disputes of tedious 
duration were laid to rest by it ; others exciting an 
extravagant popular feeling, and promising to end in 
an ill-timed resort to arms, were for ever quieted. It 
is to be regretted that several points, which Mr. Web- 
ster deemed satisfactorily adjusted by the corres- 
pondence between himself and Lord Ashburton, had 
not been more definitely secured by articles in the 
treaty. The seizure of the Caroline^ and the treat- 
ment of the crew of the Creole^ both involved ques- 
tions of international right, in which the honor of our 
flag was deeply interested. Lord Ashburton, it is 
true, conceded the irregularity of those acts ; and so 
long as the correspondence is remembered, it may 
prevent any repetition. But there would have been 
a stronger assurance, if the treaty itself had embodied 
the understanding. It was of course the policy of 
Lord Palmerston and the English opposition, to de- 
nounce the treaty, as sacrificing the interests of Great 
Britain. The subject led to an animated debate in 
the House of Commons, and the Ministry sustained 
a severe shock in the encounter. But the Whigs 
failed to prevent its ratification. At home and 
abroad, Mr. Webster was at once recognized as one 
of the foremost diplomatists of the day. His reputa- 
tion became a European one; and if the expression 
of satisfaction throughout this country was less viva- 
cious than might have been anticipated, the fact must 
be accounted for by the unpopularity of the adminis- 
tration with whicli he was connected ; Gen. Harrison 
having died, and been succeeded by John Tyler with- 
in a month after his inauguration. 



102 MEMORIALS OF 



While the negotiations with Lord Ashburton 
were pending, other external questions divided the 
attention of the Secretary of State. Our relations 
with Mexico were precarious, ^yhile on the one 
hand our Government was pressing the liberation of 
several American citizens, who had attended the un- 
fortunate Texan expedition against Santa Fe, the 
Government of Mexico appealed to that of Washing- 
ton, to repress the southern emigration to Texas, 
which swelled the armies of that Republic to an ex- 
tent, which threatened not only to make the conquest 
impossible for the largest force Mexico could raise, 
but to expose that confederation to invasion and dis- 
solution. The correspondence of Mr. Webster with 
Gen. Waddy Thompson, then Envoy at the city of 
Mexico, and with Sig. De Bocanegra, the Mexican 
Foreign Secretary, embraces a clear and eloquent 
statement of the rights and duties of the two nations 
under such circumstances. The Mexican Minister 
was less respectful in the tone of his communications 
than was fitting the dignity of our Government, and 
Mr. Webster closed the correspondence with a re- 
iterated averment of our entire neutrality, and an 
expression of unwillingness to have any further inter- 
course upon the subject. At the same time, the case 
of the Spanish brig Amistad remained unsettled on 
the files of the Department, where it had been left by 
the previous administration. The vessel had been 
found by one of our home squadron, lying close to 
the American coast, and in the possession of a band 
of negroes, who had murdered the officers, and were 
too unskilful to manage the ship. It was brought 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 103 



into port and a claim for salvage stated against it. 
While the matter was in this posture, the Chevalier 
d'Argaiz, the Spanish Minister, addressed the Secre- 
tary of State, protesting against the reference of the 
case to the Courts, when, as he maintained, it should 
be treated by the Executive, as relating dh-ectly to 
treaty obligations. This letter led to prolonged cor- 
respondence, in which Mr. Webster defended the 
course pursued by his government so successfully as 
to silence, if not satisfy, the Spanish Envoy. And 
as a portion of the diplomatic history of the period, 
we must not omit mention of the admirable instruc- 
tions addressed to Mr. Caleb Cushing, when that 
gentleman was about to embark on the delicate mis- 
sion of opening relations with China; nor the cor- 
respondence with the Portuguese Envoy, upon the 
subject of duties upon foreign wines. In both of 
these papers, relatively unimportant as they undoubt- 
edly are, the extensive information, and comprehen- 
sive views of the statesman, were brought into vivid 
relief. 

As completing the history of this era of Ameri- 
can politics, we are obliged to refer to two magnifi- 
cent displays of his rhetorical powers, which Mr. 
Webster, the orator, felt called upon to make on be- 
half of Mr. Webster, the statesman. Returning, af- 
ter the arduous duties of the summer, to enjoy a few 
weeks of relaxation at Marshfield, he was obliged to 
listen to a pressing invitation from his Boston ad- 
mirers, that he should address them publicly on the 
foreign and domestic policy of the country. The dis- 
course was delivered to a crowded audience, in Fa- 



104 MEMORIALS OF 



neuil Hall, on the 22d of September, 1842. It is 
needless to say, that it traversed tlie whole ground 
with masterly skill, distinctness, and compactness of 
expression, and that the recent negotiations received 
that luminous exposition and earnest vindication, 
which was less needed perhaps in Massachusetts than 
elsewhere, where the subject was less familiarly un- 
derstood. Partisan bitterness, however, denied the 
question any rest from controversy. It was agitated 
among other electioneering elements in the canvass 
of 1844, and in 1846, when in the Senate, Mr. Web- 
ster found his political opponents unsparing of their 
objections against the Treaty. In April, of that year, 
he took occasion to address the Senate in justifica- 
tion of that measure. Mr. Charles Jared Ingersoll, 
a member of the House of Representatives from 
Pennsylvania, had made the treaty, and the Ameri- 
can negotiator, the topic of virulent diatribes before 
that body, never allowing his arguments to fall short 
where a ready calumny was at hand to piece them 
out. Messrs. Dix and Dickinson, the Senators from 
New-York, also attacked the ex-Secretary ; the latter 
in an elaborate speech, to which, when published, a 
re-hash of Mr. Ingersoll's godless inventions was 
found to be appended. The reply of Mr. Webster 
will always rank among the most splendid and char- 
acteristic productions of his mind. Reviewing the 
history of the difficulties adjusted by the treaty, he 
scored the Democratic party thoroughly for the re- 
missness, which had left them for the administration 
of Mr. Tyler to settle ; and having amply vindicated 
that settlement beyond the possibility of further ea- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 1C5 



1- 



vil, lie turned upon his assailants, and exhausted up 
on tliem the stores of his indignant elocution. Mr 
IngersoU received the full weight of the charge 
Never was such a scathing torrent of contempt, ridi 
cule, sarcasm, and vituperation, poured out upon an 
individual head. Clearing away with a rapid hand 
the sheltering falsehoods beneath which the Pennsyl- 
vanian had concealed himself, the orator held him 
up naked to the world, and tortured him with all the 
sharp weapons which the armories of rhetoric supply 
to a just indignation. Mr. IngersoU, who had been 
more or less in public life, for the forty preceding 
years, disappeared after this castigation. He has 
since confined himself to domestic and professional 
associations. 

But Mr. Webster's connection with the Cabinet 
of Mr. Tyler was never redeemed from censure by 
the success of his negotiations. Mr. Tyler had been 
in office but a short time when it began to be appa- 
rent that his administration would not be conducted 
in a manner to command the undivided support of 
the party which had raised him to power. While in 
the Senate, during the great controversy between 
State Eights and the Federal Government, he had 
espoused the cause of Mr. Calhoun, and had acted in 
general harmony with his views. His course then 
had prevented his enjoying the full confidence of the 
Whigs, at a later day ; and his ac€i§ssion to the Pre- 
sidency soon put his fidelity to the test. Mr. Clay 
took an early opportunity to introduce a bill for the 
Charter of a National Bank. A very large portion 
of the Whig party, during the canvass, had strenu- 



106 MEMORIALS OF 



ously resisted the endeavor to present the Bank as a 
measure to which the party shoukl be considered 
pledged. The utter ruin which had overtaken the 
Old Bank of the United States, and the conviction 
that, during the latter years of its existence, it had, by 
mismanagement and corrupt practices, richly deserved 
the universalodium with which its memory was covered, 
had led them to foresee the unpopularity which any 
attempt to create a new one would inevitably incur. 
But, in spite of this distrust, the overwhelming par- 
liamentary and party strength of Mr. Clay enabled 
him to carry the bill triumphantly through Congress, 
and it was presented to President Tyler for his sig- 
nature. This was withheld, and the bill was vetoed. 
Mr. Clay at once denounced the President to the 
indignation of his party, and a whirlwind of obloquy 
and detestation was at once aroused, before which a 
much stronger spirit than President Tyler's would 
have been forced to bend. Mr. Webster, who was 
not free from suspicion that personal ambition on the 
part of Mr. Clay had quite as much to do with this 
crusade as regard for the public good, with more 
courage than success, endeavored to breast the storm. 
He was earnest and unremitting in his efforts to 
bring the Whigs into a more tolerant and compliant 
mood. At a gathering of the leading Whigs of Con- 
gress, had at his own house, he strongly urged upon 
them the folly of throwing away all the results of 
the great popular victory they had gained, because 
they had been disappointed in a single measure, and 
that, too, one of questionable necessity and expedi- 
ency. His efforts were unavailing. The thunder of 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 107 



Mr. Clay's denunciations drowned his tones of re- 
monstrance — the whole Whig sentiment of the coun- 
try swayed respondent to his tempestuous wrath. 
Mr. Webster's colleagues in the Cabinet indignantly 
tendered their resignations, hurling at the President, 
as they left, the most dishonoring charges of party 
faithlessness and personal falsehood. 

Strong in the conviction of the rectitude of his 
own purposes, unwilling to yield to what he deemed 
a transient ebullition of popular feeling, and pro- 
foundly penetrated by the importance of pending 
negotiations with foreign powers, Mr. Webster deter- 
mined, against the most resolute entreaties of his 
political friends, to retain his seat, and he did so 
retain it for about two years. For this he was se- 
verely censured by the great body of the Whig party, 
and especially by the adherents of Mr. Clay, who 
were not over charitable in the construction they put 
upon his motives, or in the epithets they applied to 
his conduct. During his continuance in office, a 
State Convention of the Whigs of Massachusetts 
assembled in Boston, to nominate candidates for 
Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, at the State 
election. Hon. Abbot Lawrence presided over its 
deliberations, and a series of resolutions were adopt- 
ed, expressing in strong terms disapprobation of the 
course of Mr. Tyler, and declaring, on behalf of the 
Whigs of Massachusetts, a ^'•full and final separa- 
tion from the President of the United States." Not 
long afterwards, Mr. Webster being on a visit to 
Boston, was tendered by the Whigs — many of whom 
had been prominent in the Convention — the compli- 



108 MEMORIALS OF 



ment of a public dinner. He declined the dinner, 
but expressed a willingness to meet his fellow-citizens 
at Fancuil Hall. The meeting was appointed for 
Sept. 30, and was attended by an immense concourse 
of the people of Boston. Hon. Jonathan Chapman, 
Mayor of the city, presided ; and, upon presenting 
Mr. Webster to the assembly, addressed him with 
eloquent compliments for his public services, but with 
special allusion to what he styled the '• pointed mean- 
ing of the occasion." He thanked him for the honor- 
able attitude in which, '-so far as his department was 
concerned, he had placed his country before the 
world. We are sure," said he, '• whatever may befall 
the country, that you will be ready to sacrifice every- 
thing for her good, save honor^ and on that point, 
amidst the perplexities of these perplexing times, we 
shall be at ease ; for we know that he who has so 
nobly maintained his country's honor, may safely be 
intrusted with his own." 

Mr. Webster opened his reply with one of those 
exquisitely beautiful sentences which are scattered 
so profusely throughout his speeches. " I know not 
how it is, Mr. Mayor," said he, " but there is some- 
thing in the echoes of these walls, or in this sea of up- 
turned faces which I behold before me, or in the 
genius that always hovers over this place, fanning 
ardent and patriotic feeling by every motion of its 
wings — I know not how it is, but there is something 
that excites me strangely, deeply, before I even be- 
gin to speak." Recurring then to the history of his 
life, to his labors in their midst, and to his public 
services in the various positions he had been called 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 109 



to fill ; after a clear, condensed statement of the 
diiolomatic labors in which he had been engaged, he 
referred directly to the remark of the Mayor, that 
he might be safely intrusted to take care of his own 
honor and reputation. '• I am," said he, " exactly of 
.his opinion. I am quite of opinion that, on a ques- 
tion touching my own honor and character, as I am 
to bear the consequences of the decision, I had a 
great deal better be trusted to make it. No man 
feels more highly the advantage of the advice of 
friends than I do ; but on a question so delicate and 
important as that, I like to choose myself the friends 
who are to give me advice ; and upon this subject, 
gentlemen, I shall leave you as enlightened as I found 
you." With this rather unpromising preface, he pro- 
ceeded to remark upon the " outpouring of wrath " 
to which he had been subjected for remaining in the 
President's Cabinet. He was " a little hard to coax, 
but as to being driven that was out of the question." 
He had chosen to trust to his own judgment, and 
thinking he was at a post where he was in the service 
of the country and could do it good, he had staid 
there. Again apologizing for entering upon topics on 
which his opinions might be different from those of 
his audience, he cited the resolutions passed " by the 
most respectable Convention of Whig delegates," 
'which had met in Boston a few davs before. He 
noticed among them a declaration, made on be- 
half of the Whigs of the State, a " full and final se- 
paration from the President." Whigs had a right 
to speak their individual sentiments everywhere ; 
but whether they might assume to speak for others 



110 MEMORIALS OF 



on a point on which those others had given them no 
authority, is another question. " I am a Whig," said 
he — " I have always been a Whig, and I alwa3"S will 
be one ; and if there are any who would turn me out 
of the pale of that communion, let them see who will 
get out first. I am ready to submit to all decisions 
of Whig conventions on subjects on which they are 
authorized to make decisions. But it is quite ano- 
ther question, whether a set of gentlemen, however 
respectable they may be as individuals, shall 
have the power to bind me on matters which I 
have not agreed to submit to their decision." He 
went on to say that three years of the President's 
term of office still remained ; that great public in- 
terests required his attention ; and asked whether 
all his measures upon these subjects, however useful 
they might be, were to be opposed by the Whig 
party of Massachusetts, right or wrong. There were 
a great many Massachusetts Whigs also in office — 
Collectors, District Attorneys, Postmasters, Marshals. 
What was to become of them in this separation ? 
Mr. Everett, our Minister in England, was lie expect- 
ed to come home on this separation, and yield his 
place to somebody else ? " And in regard to the indi- 
vidual who addresses you — what do his brother AVhigs 
mean to do with him ? Where do they mean to place 
me ? Generally, when a divorce takes place, the 
parties divide their children. I am anxious to know 
where, in the case of this divorce, 1 shall fall." Mr. 
Webster said he had alluded to this matter because 
he could not fail to sec that the resolution had an inten- 
tional or an unintentional bearing on his position. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. Ill 



It meant that if lie should choose to remain in the 
President's councils he must cease to be a Massa- 
chusetts Whig. " And I am quite ready," said he, 
" to put that question to the people of Massa- 
chusetts." He proceeded to say that there was too 
general a disposition to postpone all attempts to do 
good to the country to some future day. Many 
Whigs thought they saw a prospect of having more 
power than they then had. But there was a Whig- 
majority in Congress, and the substantial fruits of 
the great victory of 1840 could, with moderate and 
prudent councils, still be secured. But nothing but 
cordial and fraternal union could save the party from 
renewed prostration. 

Mr. Webster's speech on this occasion was one of 
great power, and it produced an effect upon the sen- 
timent of the country. But it could not turn back 
the tide of indignant public feeling which had been 
turned at the outset, by the bold impetuosity of Mr. 
Clay and the seconding efforts of the retiring Secre- 
taries, against the President. He gradually took 
ground against the party which had driven him out, 
and, after an imbecile endeavor to purchase arenomi- 
nation from the party to which he had deserted, became 
its open ally and subservient tool. Mr. Webster 
resigned office in 1843, and remained in private life 
during the remainder of the Administration. He 
was succeeded by Mr. Calhoun, who was elected by 
the President for the special purpose of carrying 
forward the Annexation of Texas, a measure which 
he had been led to espouse with great earnestness, 
though the steps towards its accomplishment were as 



112 MEMORIALS OF 



yet concealed from the knowledge of the country. 
Mr. Webster, on leaving oJ0&ce, endeavored to arouse 
public attention to the dangers that were impending 
from this quarter ; but his efforts were not attended 
with marked success. It was only upon the eve of 
another Presidential contest that the question assumed 
its just proportions in the public eye. 

During his retirement from office much of Mr. 
Webster'g attention was engaged in professional pur- 
suits, and the year 1844 was marked b}^ several bril- 
liant exhibitions of his popular and forensic oratory. 
Two arguments, the one before the Supreme Court 
of the United States, and the other before that of 
Massachusetts, are in his very happiest vein. The 
first was delivered in February, in the case of F. F. 
Yidal and others, vs. the Executors of the will of 
Stephen Girard, — a case in which property to the 
value of millions was involved. The main ground 
taken by Mr. Webster, on behalf of the heirs, against 
the validity of the will, was that the College at 
Philadelphia, endowed by the will, was not a charity, 
because established on Atheistical principles, and 
therefore not entitled to the protection of the laws. 
This proposition was supported with all the aids of 
learning and ingenuity ; and on American soil no 
more eloquent vindication of religion and its ministers 
has ever been uttered. The speech, in a pamphlet 
form, was circulated extensively among the religious 
world. It remains among the host of evidences he 
has left us, of the wide scope and infinite diversity of 
his talents, and the respect he always entertained for 
the institutions of religion. The argument at Boston, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 113 



in the case of the Providence Railroad Company 
against the City of Boston^ is, from its nature, a 
strictly legal effort, and therefore requires no especial 
notice here. In June, of 1844, the anniversary of 
the battle of Bunker Hill and the completion of the 
monument were celebrated with much eclat at Boston. 
The speech of Mr. Webster, who had baptized the 
first stone of the column with a stream of eloquence 
that shall remain classic while the monument and the 
language endure, was exceedingly appropriate, and 
though lacking the fire and imaginative splendor of 
his earlier efforts, abounds with passages of remarkable 
vigor and beauty. 

The Presidential canvass of 1844, opened by the 
nomination of Mr. Clay, by acclamation, in the Whig 
Convention at Baltimore. Mr. Webster, being in 
that city at the time, made a speech indicating his 
earnest desire for the triumph of the Whig party and 
its principles. Mr. Van Buren,in a long letter written 
just upon the eve of the Democratic Convention, had 
taken ground decidedly against the annexation of 
Texas. For this offence, among others, he had been 
set aside as a candidate, and Mr. Polk was nominated 
for the Presidency. Mr. Clay had also taken ground 
against annexation ; and the canvass was conducted, 
to a very great extent, in all sections of the country, 
upon this issue. Mr. Webster made several public 
addresses upon the subject. At Albany, Philadelphia, 
and elsewhere, he spoke to large assemblies of people, 
though in all cases he gave attention mainly to ques- 
tions relating to the commercial, financial and indus- 
trial interests of the country. There is abundant 



114 MEMORIALS OF 



reason to believe that if Mr. Clay had been content 
with his first declaration of opinion upon the subject 
of annexation, he would have been elected. Subse- 
quent explanations, made to remove anticipated ob- 
jections to his position in Alabama, and other Southern 
States, deprived him, to a great extent, of the benefit 
which that position gave him at the North. 

At the opening of the Congress of 1845, Mr. Web- 
ster resumed his seat in the Senate, having been 
chosen to succeed Mr. Choate. He found under dis- 
cussion some of the gravest questions that had ever 
agitated the country. The Oregon Boundary, and 
the results of Texan Annexation, were urgent ; and 
popular feeling had been worked up to an extraordi- 
nary pitch of excitement about both. The Democratic 
Platform had declared in favor of ultra measures. It 
only remained for the Whigs, in Senate and House, 
to play the moderate role of a minority, and as far as 
possible restrain the violence that threatened to bring 
on our heads two wars, for either of which we were 
totally unprepared, at the same hapless moment. The 
Tariff bill of 1842 was likewise in imminent danger; 
and in every point of view, the posture of the party 
in relation to the conduct of both the external and 
[internal policy of the Government, was distressing 
and difficult. Mr. Webster was of course found in 
the van of the minority. Upon the Oregon question, 
he maintained the line of adjustment to which the 
Administration and its supporters were finally obliged 
to descend. Having opposed the Annexation reso- 
lutions, he was of course opposed to the precipitate 
measures by wliich we were plunged into the war with 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 115 



Mexico. And on the Tariff bill, lie occupied the po- 
sition he had always occupied, by defending the Whig 
policy to the very last. Of the eminently judicious 
policy of the Whigs with regard to the prosecution of 
the war, Mr. Webster deserves the credit. While 
protesting against the measure in its origin and pro- 
gress, they patriotically sustained the Administration 
with the most liberal supplies, and facilitated every 
approach to the only term then attainable, an honor- 
able and remunerative peace. 

The settlement of the Oregon Boundary dispute, 
which had existed for many years, was effected during 
the first year of Mr. Polk's administration, by an 
amicable division of the Territory to which both Eng- 
land and the United States laid claim. A bill was 
promptly introduced and passed the House of Repre- 
sentatives to organize a Government for the Territory 
thus acquired. When it reached the Senate, it was 
amended, by making the Missouri Compromise a part 
of it — excluding Slavery above, and admitting it be- 
low, the parallel of 36° 30^ north latitude. This 
amendment was disagreed to in the House ; and when 
the bill came back, a long discussion was had upon a 
motion that the Senate should recede. On the 12th 
of August, 1848, Mr. Webster spoke in favor of the 
motion, insisting upon the right of Congress to ex- 
clude Slavery from this Territory, upon the expedi- 
ency of exercising that right, upon the groundlessness 
of the complaint on the part of the South that their 
property was excluded, and against any further ex- 
tension of slave territory. Upon the question of ex- 
tending Southern property, he said j^at the whole 



IIG MEMORIALS OF 



complaint was simply tliis : " The Southern States 
have peculiar laws, and by those laws there is prop- 
erty in slaves. This is purely local. The real mean- 
ing, then, of Southern gentlemen, in making this com- 
plaint, is, that they cannot go into the Territories of 
the United States carrying with them their own pecu- 
liar local law — a law which creates property in per- 
sons. This demand I, for one, shall resist." He 
closed his remarks by laying down three propositions: 
First. That when this Constitution was adopted, 
nobody looked for any new acquisition of territory to 
be formed into slaveholding States. 

Second. That the principles of the Constitution 
prohibited; and were intended to prohibit, and should 
be construed to prohibit, all interference of the Gen- 
eral Government with Slavery, as it existed, and as it 
still exists, in the States. And f | 

Third. Looking to the operation of these new ac- 
quisitions, which have in this great degree had the 
effect of strengthening that interest in the South by 
the addition oijive States, I feel that there is nothing 
unjust, nothing of which any honest man can com- 
plain, if he is intelligent ; I feel that there is nothing 
with which the civilized world, if they take notice of 
so humble a person as myself, will reproach me when 
I say, as I said the other day, that I have made up 
my mind for one, that under no circumstances will I 
consent to the further extension of the area of Slavery 
in the United States, or to the further increase of 
Slave representation in the House of Representatives. 
The Senate finally receded from its amendment, 
and the bill jj^ssed with a clause for ever excluding 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 117 



Slavery from the Territory — in wliicli form it received 
the signature of the President. 

In the Spring of 1847, Mr. Webster visited the 
Southern States, passing rapidly through Virginia 
and North Carolina to South Carolina. At Charles- 
ton, he was honored by a complimentary dinner from 
the New England Society of that city, and similar 
hospitalities were paid him at Columbia, Augusta, and 
Savannah. He designed going to New Orleans, but 
ill health compelled him to return. 

The Mexican war meantime had been prosecuted, 
by the skill and valor of the American arms, to a tri- 
umphant close. The capital and all the principal 
posts of the country were in our possession, and 
a treaty had been concluded by which Mexico ceded 
to us immense portions of her territory, comprising 
all of New Mexico and a large part of California. 
Mr. Webster, on the 22d of March, 1848, opposed 
the treaty, on the ground that it brought with it 
large accessions of territory which we did not need, 
which would only add new Slave States to the Union, 
which v/ould bring in new States of comparatively 
small population, and thus vastly augment the power 
of the Senate over that of the House of Representa- 
tives, and thus destroy the just relation between the 
two, and prove in every way injurious to the country. 
" I think," said he, " I see a course adopted which is 
likely to turn the Constitution of the land into a de- 
formed monster, into a curse rather than a blessing ; 
in fact, a frame of an unequal Government, not found- 
ed on popular representation, not founded on equal- 
ity, but on the grossest inequality ; and I think that 



118 MEMORIALS OF 



this process will go on, or that there is danger that 
it will go on, until this Union shall fall to pieces. I 
resist it, to-day and always. Whoever falters or 
whoever flies, I continue the contest !" The treaty 
was ratified. New Mexico and California became 
parts of the United States ; and the great question 
thence arising, to be submitted to the issues of a 
Presidential canvass, related to the nature of the 
territorial government under which they should be 
organized. The House insisted on the exclusion of 
slavery. The Senate resisted it; and between the 
two the whole question was left unsettled, and mili- 
tary power alone kept the territories from a state of 
anarchy. 

The Democratic National Convention nominated 
General Cass for the Presidency, greatly to the dis- 
gust of the friends of Mr. Van Buren. The Whig 
Convention met at Philadelphia, and nominated Ge- 
neral Taylor. Mr. Webster declined to be a candi- 
date for the Vice Presidency, declaring himself a 
candidate for the first ofiice, and his purpose to re- 
main so until the representatives of the Whig party 
should decide otherwise. He was dissatisfied with 
the nomination of General Taylor, partly because he 
was opposed to making Presidents of military men, 
and partly because he believed that the condition of 
the country required the selection of a Northern 
man, known to be true in resisting the steady aggres- 
sions of Slavery. The result led him to despair of 
ever seeing the North united ; and when the profess- 
edly exclusive friends of freedom in the territories, 
selected Mr. Van Buren as their candidate and re- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 119 



presentative, he was inclined to abandon all further 
hope of making any successful stand against the do- 
mination of the Slave-holding States. Falling hack, 
therefore, upon the other issues which had divided 
the two political parties, he gave his support to the 
Whig candidate ; taking care to say that it was not 
because he believed him to be the most fit and proper 
person for that position, but because he believed his 
election would be far better for the country than that 
of General Cass. General Taylor was elected. 

Meantime the people of California, getting no 
Government from Congress, made one for themselves. 
They met in State Convention, and formed a Consti- 
tution, in which slavery was prohibited. This Con- 
stitution was accepted by the people at an election 
held for the purpose. President Taylor came into 
office on the 4th of March, 1849. Owing to a mis- 
understanding between them, growing out of acci- 
dental circumstances, which involved blame upon 
neither side, there were no confidential relations be- 
tween the President and Mr. Webster. In the House 
of Representatives the Anti-Slavery proviso was in- 
sisted on as an essential feature of any Government 
for the territories that might be passed. This posi- 
tion was sustained by resolutions in all the non- 
Slaveholding States, by large public meetings and by 
Northern sentiment generally. The South felt high- 
ly indignant at these attempts to exclude Slavery 
from the new territories. A meeting of a majority 
of the members of Congress from the Slaveholding 
States was held at the Capital, at one of which Mr. 
Calhoun was appointed to draw up an address of the 



120 MEMORIALS OF 



Southern delegates to their constituents. The ad- 
dress thus prepared was afterwards adopted, and re- 
ceived the signature of forty-eight members of Con- 
fess from Southern States. These movements led 
to a very considerable excitement throughout the 
country, though neither the state of public feeling, 
nor the movements of any portion of the people, were 
as hostile or menacing to the peace of the country as 
had been witnessed on previous occasions of our his- 
tory. Mr. Clay had presented a series of proposi- 
tions, five in number, which were designed to be em- 
bodied in a single act, and to constitute one measure 
for compromising and adjusting the difficult3^ Pre- 
sident Taylor was understood to be in favor of act- 
ing upon each separately, and on its merits, doing 
whatever justice should dictate, and trusting to the 
attachment of the people, and the vigor of the pow- 
ers with which the Constitution clothes the Govern- 
ment, to prevent any serious results. He was in fa- 
vor of admitting California with the Constitution 
which the people had framed, and of leaving the ter- 
ritories to settle the question of admitting or exclud- 
ing slavery for themselves. Deputations of South- 
ern members of Congress waited upon him, with ear- 
nest remonstrances and equally earnest menaces ; but 
neither shook his convictions or disturbed his pur- 
poses. The compromise measure of Mr. Clay failed 
to command the assent of Congress. And on the 7th 
of March, Mr. Webster made an extended and im- 
pressive speech upon the whole subject, intended to 
present a basis upon which all sections could consent 
to stand, and by which all future collisions might be 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 121 



avoided. He proposed, as practical measures, near- 
ly tlie plan of the President, namely : the admission 
of California, and the organization of Territorial 
Governments for New Mexico and Utah, without any 
excluding clause — urging that such a clause would, 
in this case, be superfluous. But he indicated a wil- 
lingness to purchase the claim of Texas to a portion 
of New Mexico, which the President proposed to sub- 
mit to the adjudication of the Supreme Court, and 
made sundry declarations of his own personal senti- 
ments, indicating a strong disposition to make all 
possible concessions to Southern demands, for the 
sake of preserving the peace and stability of the 
Union. His speech on this occasion was exceedingly 
able, and awakened a degree of public interest fully 
equal to that of any of his previous efforts. Con- 
nected, to some extent, with these measures, was a 
bill amending the law of 1793 for the recovery of fu- 
gitive slaves, so as to make it more effectual. It was 
originally introduced by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, and 
received Mr. Webster's support, although he had 
prepared and designed to offer an amendment, secur- 
ing to persons claimed as fugitives the benefit of a 
trial by jury, to test the question whether they owed 
service to their claimants. 

We have good reason for believing that Mr. Web- 
ster at this time had been disabused of erroneous im- 
pressions that had led, as noticed above, to a partial 
estrangement between himself and the President ; 
and that he had come to regard Gren. Taylor as the 
man best fitted by position, and by his views, to car- 
ry the country safely through the crisis. This, how- 



122 MEMORIALS OF 



ever, belongs to the secret history of those important 
events, and the time for writing that, — even if we 
v>ere comjDetent and possessed of the requisite mate- 
rial, — ^has not yet come. It is sufficient to say that 
if Gen. Taylor had lived, Mr. Webster would have 
been the acknowledged leader of the Administration 
in the Senate, and that affairs would undoubtedly 
have taken a different course. At this juncture, 
however, Gen. Taylor died, and Mr. Fillmore, then 
Vice-President, succeeded to the office. Mr. Web- 
ster was at once called by him, and by the voice of 
the country, to the post which he occupied at the 
time of his decease. The office was no longer op- 
pressed with those burdens of unfinished business, 
which had encumbered it at the end of Mr. Van Bu- 
ren's term. But it had nevertheless its share of pe- 
culiar responsibilities. The administration of Mr. 
Fillmore was required to enforce with the whole 
weight of its exalted influence the conditions of the 
Compromise, which were speedily enacted into laws. 
Some of those conditions offended the moral feelings 
and prejudices of one section of the Union : and the 
other pressed all the more eagerly for their relentless 
fulfilment. To no portions of the country were the 
Compromise measures more distasteful than to New 
England, and to Mr. Webster's own State. The Se- 
cretary, nevertheless, did not hesitate to lend the 
whole strength of his popularity and of his intellec- 
tual resources to reconcile the reluctant North. His 
zeal, perhaps, transcended the suggestions of personal 
and political expediency. Some of it was positively 
due to the malignant violence and keenness with 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 123 



which his course had been hailed by Abolitionists and 
ultra Free-Soilers ; but those who knew Mr. Webster 
most intimately, bear witness that the principal mo- 
tive of his course from first to last was an unwaver- 
ing conviction that the duration of the Union and the 
sanctity of the Constitution, depended upon entire 
acquiescence in those pacificatory conventions. The 
effect upon the state of feeling at the North was per- 
haps fortunate for the country ; but it cannot be 
doubted that a large number of personal friends and 
veteran supporters of the statesman were thencefor- 
ward obliged to temper their admiration with some 
portion of'^egret. 

It was only a few weeks after Mr. Webster's ac- 
cession to the Secretaryship of State, that the letter 
of Chevalier Hulseman, in relation to an alleged in- 
terference of the American government in the inter- 
nal affairs of Austria, was addressed to the Depart- 
ment. This document, famous only for the response 
it provoked, contained a recital of complaints pre- 
ferred by the Imperial Court, in consequence of Mr. 
Dudley Mann's mission of observation to Austria and 
Hungary, and the reports made by that agent, in 
which language disrespectful to the Governments of 
Russia and Austria, was alleged to have been used ; 
and the Austrian Charge felt impelled to enter a pro- 
test against what his principals chose to regard as an 
act of impertinent intervention. The reply of Mr. 
Webster, which was withheld for some time as if to 
aggravate the Contemptuous rejoinder by a preface of 
contemptuous silence, is fresh in every recollection. 
Its lofty and dignified tone, a tone indeed of haughty 



1 



L 



124 MEMORIALS OF 



condescension ; the faithful and unanswerable refuta- 
tion it offered to some of Mr. Hulseman's allegations, 
and the air with which controversy about others was 
declined ; the rebuke administered to the Austrian 
Government for its despotic barbarity ; the bold and 
unmistakable statement of the American policy to- 
ward a people ridding itself of such a yoke as that 
imposed upon the Hungarians ; these traits, and the 
animated eloquence with which they were framed, 
constitute the note to the Austrian Charge one of the 
finest papers in the archives of diplomacy. It will 
remain as a model for diplomatic controversy hereaf- 
ter, where republican practice is called in question, 
and republican frankness is demanded to justify it. 
It will be regarded as the authority upon all matters 
of external policy. And scholars and general readers 
will recur to it as a pattern of literary elegance and 
intellectual brilliancy. 

In May, 1851, Mr. Webster accompanying the 
President and his colleagues in the Cabinet, visited 
the State of New-York, on the occasion of celebrat- 
ing the completion of the New-York and Erie Rail- 
road. On reaching Dunkirk, he was detained there 
by the illness of his son, and compelled to separate 
from the rest of the party. At Buffalo he was com- 
1 limented by a public dinner, at which he made an 
extended and admirable speech, mainly upon the 
rapid growth of that section of the State, with allu- 
sions to some of the leading topics that had recently 
engaged public attention. The next day, on the 
22d, he addressed the people of Buffalo more direct- 
ly upon the subjects which were then prominent in 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 125 

the public mind, vindicating the policy of the Admin- 
istration upon all points, and defending his own 
course. He was greeted also by large public gather- 
ings of people at Rochester, Albany, and other points 
along the route, at all of which he made addresses 
more or less extended. 

Yery soon after his return to Washington, Mr. 
Webster's attention was called to our relations with 
Spain, in consequence of the expeditions against 
Cuba, to which G-eneral Lopez and a large number of 
American citizens fell victims. His offices, less 
promptly rendered than an impatient public sentiment 
demanded, procured the release of a large number of 
prisoners who had been carried to Spain, and subse- 
quently obtained the discharge of Mr. John S. 
Thrasher, whose dubious citizenship evoked from the 
Secretary an able discussion of the law of domicil. 
The rough treatment of the Spanish Consul at New 
Orleans by the populace, inflamed by the cruelties 
practised upon the soldiers of the expedition by the 
Spanish authorities of Cuba, was likewise the sub- 
ject of correspondence and reparation. The last 
year of Mr. Webster's life was occupied with several 
diplomatic questions of the highest importance, but 
which he was prevented from completing by the hand 
of death. These were the revival of the Clayton 
and Bulwer Treaty in relation to Central American 
affairs ; the Tehuantepec Treaty ; the question of 
the right of fishery ; and that of the ownership of 
the Lobos Islands. As these are contemporary mat- 
ters, and opinions about them still variable, because 
not founded upon the most ample supplies of infor- 



126 MEMORIALS OF 



mation, and as their consummatiou will now pass into 
other hands, we do not think proper to admit them 
into our estimate of the Statesman. We know no- 
thing of the issue that might have been given to any 
of them had the illustrious diplomatist survived. It 
is not worth while, with the lights before us, to say 
any thing more than that the action of Mr. Webster 
was undoubtedly the result of entire devotion to 
what he believed to be the truest interests of the 
country, and that whatever room there may be to 
question the soundness of his conclusions, there is no 
reason to impeach his sincerity and integrity. 

In tracing this outline of the biography of a man 
who j&lls in American history a place equal in honor 
and dignity, though differing in kind, with those oc- 
cupied by Pitt, Fox, and Burke, in the history of 
England, we have been obliged to pass by many of those 
occasions when he came in more immediate contact 
with the people. In the published collection of his 
works, there are various orations, addresses, and let- 
ters, which excited the highest applause at the time 
of their publication, and remain as witnesses of the 
diversified qualities and resources of his mind. We 
might mention among these his eulogistic tributes to 
General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun ; his various ad- 
dresses to his friends in Boston and neighbors at 
Marshfield ; his oration at the New Hampshire festi- 
val ; his capital paper read last winter before the 
New- York Historical Society, and published in the 
Daily Times ; his letter to Hon. Isaac Hill, and to 
our Minister at Constantinople, in relation to the re- 
lease of the Hungarian refugees. No one of these 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 12*7 

but illustrates some strong, masculine, but exquisitely 
sculptured feature of his Titanic intellect ; and 
forms one of the many links by which he attracted 
to himself, not only the popular admiration, but the 
admiration, the esteem, the enthusiastic devotion of 
all educated men. 

It would however be unjust to his memory to pass 
unnoticed his opinions and action in regard to the 
great event by which in future time the current year 
will be distinguished, — the visit of the Hungarian 
Kossuth to the United States. Mr. Webster had 
early evinced the warm interest which he felt in the 
welfare of that noble martyr to the cause of Consti- 
tutional Liberty in Hungary, by his letter of instruc- 
tions to Hon. George P. Marsh, our Minister at Con- 
stantinople, directing him to use all the influence of 
his official position to prevent his surrender to the 
Austrian Government, and to permit his retirement 
to the United States. Governor Kossuth reached 
New- York on the 6th of December, 1851, and at once 
entered upon that great pilgrimage of romance, and 
of love to the crushed hopes and liberties of his na- 
tive land, which stands without parallel in the history 
of the world. " For the first time," says the most 
eloquent American living, in speaking of his appeals- 
to the pity of the people of this Republic, — " for the 
first time since the transcendent genius of Demosthenes 
strove with the downward age of Greece ; or since 
the Prophets of Israel announced, — each tone of the 
hymn grander, sadder than before, — the successive 
footfalls of the approaching Assyrian, beneath whose 
spear the Law should cease and the vision be seen no 



128 MEMORIALS OF 



more ; our ears, our hearts, have drank the sweetest, 
most mournful, most awful of the tones which man 
may ever utter, or may ever hear, — the eloquence of 
an Expiring Nation. When shall we be quite cer- 
tain again, that the lyre of Orpheus did not kindle 
savage natures to a transient discourse of reason ; 
did not suspend the labours and charm the pains of 
the damned ; did not lay the guardian of the grave 
asleep, and bring back Eurydice from the region be- 
yond the river, to the warm, upper air ?" At the in- 
vitation of Congress, Kossuth visited "Washington, 
and on the 7th of January, partook of a public ban- 
quet tendered to him by a large number of the mem- 
bers of both Houses. Mr. Webster was present on 
this occasion, and made a speech, in which, although 
restrained by the proprieties of his position, from mak- 
ing any allusion to the sentiments or intended action 
of the Government, he did not hesitate to declare 
his entire sympathy with the attempt of Hungary to 
achieve her independence, and his opinion that she was 
entitled, by her population, by her institutions, and 
by the valor of her people, to an independent na- 
tional existence. He also referred to the speech which 
he made in the Senate of the United States, in 1824, 
upon the principles involved in the Grreek revolution ; 
and declared that he adhered to them in every re- 
spect, and was quite ready to apply them to whatever 
case might be presented. The citations we have made, 
in a* previous portion of this paper, from that speech, 
supersede the necessity of dwelling further upon the 
specific purport of this declaration. In letters writ- 
ten, in reply to various invitations to attend public 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 129 



meetings upon the subject, he expressed similar views 
with equal emphasis, 

Mr. Webster has achieved high distinction in 
three apparently incompatible walks of life — walks 
that are incompatible to all but men of superior ge- 
nius. As a lawyer, he has for very many years held 
the foremost rank. Surpassed by many in legal 
learning, by some in logical power, and by a few in 
the eloquence of his appeals to the jury, in the com- 
bination of all these great faculties, he stands unri- 
valled. As a statesman, in the most comprehensive 
meaning of that large word, no American, except 
Alexander Hamilton, can maintain a comparison 
with him. Mr. Calhoun had a more acute and meta- 
physical mind ; Mr. Clay, with a more electric nature, 
had far greater sagacity in reading public sentiment, 
and in gaining command of the springs of popular 
attachment ; and each of those great men held in 
more complete control the opinions and conduct of 
large masses of their countrymen. But in that large, 
liberal comprehensiveness which saw all around and 
all through every subject — which studied and judged 
every thing in all its relations, and in that high- 
toned, unbending, uncompromising dignity of thought, 
of language and of manner, with which he was al- 
ways clothed, and which gave infinite impressiveness 
to every thing he did or said — neither of them, nor 
any other American, living or dead, was equal to him. 
His political career has been marked by greater con- 
sistency of principle than that of most of his distin- 
guished cotemporaries, and by quite as close adher- 
ence to a single system of measures as is compatible 
6* 



130 MEMORIALS OF 



V 



with wisdom in a science which is, in fact, only a 
science of expedients. Upon the question of the 
Tariff, he changed his policy — but only to meet 
changes in the business relations and interests of the 
section of the country for which he acted. At a 
still later day, during the struggles of 1 850, for sec- 
tional supremacy, Mr. Webster held a different position 
from that which he occupied with such distinction 
during the similar convulsions of 1833. But the prin- 
ciples which he maintained on both these occasions 
were essentially the same: it was only upon the prac- 
tical measures in which they were to be embodied, 
that he had changed. And, always — in all these 
cases and in all the acts of his life, in every thing he 
ever did or said, from the earliest day of his public 
service down to the latest syllable of his recorded 
time, — he lived, and moved, and had his being, under 
the domination of an ever-present love of Country, 
which knew no change, and left no act or word of his 
life unmarked by its presence and its power. A more 
thorough American never trod the continent than 
Daniel Webster. He loved his country ; he bowed 
before the wisdom and holy patriotism of its founders 
and its fathers ; he reverenced the Constitution which 
gave it national being and position in the view of the 
world ; and he devoted all the energies of his life to 
its defence against whatever threatened, from any 
quarter, to weaken its foundations or impair its 
strength. For this high service, rendered with such 
matchless power, and fruitful of influences which will 
make themselves felt at every period of our future 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 131 

history, he merits and will receive the profoandest 
gratitude of every heart. 

But, besides the reputation which he won as a 
lawyer and a statesman, Mr. Webster has received 
the highest rank as a literary man. His speeches, 
his letters, his orations — all the products of his pen 
and the utterances of his tongue, will be studied and 
admired by future ages, not less for their consummate 
literary merit, than for the qualities more directly 
connected with the special purposes for which they 
were prepared. In the early part of his life, during 
his college days and for some years after, his style 
was exceedingly vicious and bombastic, to a degree 
which no one familiar only with his later productions 
would believe possible. There have been few men in 
this country of equally laborious and studious habits 
with Mr. Webster ; and he devoted himself for suc- 
cessive years, with an earnest and resolute fidel- 
ity, to the correction and perfection of his style. He 
was fastidious to a remarkable degree in his choice 
of words, in the shaping of his sentences, and even in 
the punctuation and emphasis which should be given 
to them. And, although during his later years, as 
the effect of this rigid and relentless mental disci- 
pline, easy and graceful elegance of language had 
become so habitual with him as to seem devoid of all 
effort and study, he never laid aside this minute at- 
tention to his style, or suffered any point, hovi^ever tri- 
fling, of critical accuracy to escape his notice. Instances 
of his conscientious exactitude, especially in the reports 
of his speeches, have repeatedly fallen under the ob- 
servation of the present writer. A very foolish en- 



132 MEMORIALS OF 



deavor has been made by some of Mr. Webster's 
friends to create the impression that the great ora- 
tions and speeches which have carried his celebrity 
all over the world, were made with little effort and 
trifling preparation. Even so judicious a writer as 
Mr. Everett, seeks to confirm the statement of Mr. 
March, that the reply to Hayne was the result of at 
most a few hours' reflection, and that all the notes he 
made for it were contained upon one side of a sheet 
of paper. This latter statement is true, so far as the 
notes from which he spoke were concerned ; but the 
general impression conveyed in these representations 
is unjust to Mr. Webster, and calculated to induce 
very injurious theories and habits in the minds of 
the young. Mr. Webster had prepared himself for 
that debate with all his usual care. He knew a fort- 
night beforehand the points that would be made, the 
positions that would be assumed, and the parties that 
would be assailed. And we have no doubt that all 
those magnificent passages which live in the memory 
and glow in the heart of all who read them, were 
prepared beforehand, with the utmost care and the 
nicest discrimination in the choice of words. And 
the same thing is certainly true of many other of his 
most celebrated speeches. 

But great as Mr. Webster was in all these high 
spheres of intellectual activity, no one who has ever 
had opportunities of judging will hesitate to say, that 
he was equally great in the more restricted department 
of Convey- satio7i. He was an accomplished scholar, 
especially conversant with the best portions of English 
literature, and more or less familiar with every subject 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 133 



which engages attention. In a circle of friends, at 
table, or even in a tete-a-tete with a single person, his 
conversation was the richest and most instructive enter- 
tainment that can be conceived. He was sometimes 
a little too didactic to suit the ideal of a good converser ; 
but no hearer ever complained of this as a fault. He 
expressed himself always, upon every occasion, and in 
making the most trifling remark, with that clearness, ac- 
curacy and weighty dignity which were inseparable from 
his nature. We cannot imagine a richer contribution 
to the literature of America and the world, than would 
be a record of Mr. Webster's conversations upon 
topics of public concern. No such perfect collection, 
of course, can ever be made. But those who were 
admitted to the high privilege of his intimate and con- 
fidential society, owe to the world some reminiscences 
of this great man, of whom the world can never know 
too much. For it is only thus that coming generations 
can receive that degree of instruction and advantage 
to which they have a claim, from Him who, in so 
emphatic a sense, 

" was not for an Age, 



But for all Time." 



THE N. Y. DAILY TIMES "LEADER" ON 
THE DEATH OF MR. WEBSTER. 



-»-•-•- 



The event, which the whole country has, for a few 
days, been anticipating with the deepest sorrow, has 
at length occurred. Daniel Webster is no longer of 
the living. He has passed from the scene of his vast 
labors and his glorious triumphs, to join the great of 
all ages in the spirit-land. But he has left a nation 
of mourners. His family, his relatives, the extended 
circle of his ardent personal friends, have no monopoly 
of grief — but every American in whose breast beats 
an American heart partakes the general sorrow. No 
man could have departed from us who would have 
left so large a void — whose place could not have been 
more easily supplied. No name of the present day 
is so intimately interwrought into the very web and 
woof of our country's history — none, surely, to which 
an American may point with a more heartfelt and 
glowing pride. The mourning which spreads over 
the land will know no North, no South, no East, no 
West. It will not be confined by narrow limits ; — 
State lines cannot bound it — degrees of latitude or 



136 MEMORIALS OF 



longitude will not check its flowing ; but over the 
broad bosom of this great Continent, from ocean to 
ocean — nay, wherever on the ocean float the Stars 
and Stripes, there will well up from noble hearts the 
profoundest lamentation for the inestimable loss our 
country has sustained. Party animosities slink into 
their burrow — political rivalries and jealousies are 
overshadowed by the great bereavement, and hide 
away. The weapons of party warfare fall harmless 
to the ground, and contending parties and rival sec- 
tions give token of humanity, and swell the tide and 
volume of the common grief. 

It seems, indeed, a pity that such large experience, 
such commanding powers, gathered and strengthened 
amid the troublous contests, trials and vicissitudes of 
the world, could not have been longer vouchsafed to 
us, a conspicuous light and guide to the present and 
coming generations of men. But no endowments of 
heaven can guarantee an earthly existence beyond the 
usual limits of life ; nor, however much mankind 
might gain, would it be just to the individual, to 
withhold him from that higher sphere that beckons 
and awaits him. But Webster's bright example and 
recorded wisdom remain. As he passed over the disc 
of this life, he has enacted his part on so conspicuous 
a field, that all have been able to profit by his career; 
and his majestic orations yet resound in every ear. 
It is fortunate, indeed, that his forensic reputation 
will not depend, as that of many great orators has 
done, merely on tradition. It will not die out of the 
memory of any succeeding generation. His own 
great thoughts, in his own harmonious and stirring 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 13*7 



language, are stamped upon the living page, " and 
there they will remain for ever." 

That Mr. Webster should at this time have sur- 
rendered his life, cannot be surprising, even to those 
who know how much of iron entered into his consti- 
tution, when they reflect upon the extraordinary la- 
bors he has performed. What frame but his that 
would not have broken down under merely the pro- 
fessional duties that have been cast upon him ? For 
nearly half a century, he has been sought out, not 
only in his own, but in other countries and States, to 
sustain the chief weight and responsibility of the most 
important litigations. If mighty interests were at 
stake, or new and interesting questions involved, or 
if causes depended upon constitutional construction, 
the services were invoked of this Goliath of the North. 
When we remember a few of the most conspicuous of 
the causes in which he has been employed, — the Astor 
cases in this city — the Dartmouth College case — the 
famous steamboat case between New Jersey and New 
York, of Gibbons vs. Ogden — the Crowningshields 
— the New-York Fire cases — the Girard will — the 
recent India Rubber case — when we turn over the 
decisions of the Federal Courts of the Union, and 
see how numerous and important are the questions 
upon which he has been professionally called to shed 
the light of his mind — when we think how many hun- 
dreds of nisi prius causes he has tried, reports of 
which have never been embalmed in type — remember- 
ing too, that in all of these cases it has been his lot 
to try his strength with the ablest and most distin- 
guished lawyers of the Union, with men whose powers 



138 MEMORIALS OF 



might well arouse the highest effort of transcend- 
ent genius — with Jeremiah Mason, Samuel Dexter 
and Joseph Story, with Pinckney, Emmett, Wirt, 
and with the most brilliant advocates of the present 
day, it may well awaken surprise that, under the 
pressure of such legal labors, he should have stood 
up so stoutly and so long. But when we accumulate 
the other achievements of his life — his miscellaneous 
studies — his laborious researches into almost every 
department of knowledge — his agricultural supervi- 
sion and care — his varied, continuous and volumin- 
ous correspondence — his magnificent addresses upon 
literary and patriotic topics and occasions — his social 
duties though pleasing, yet rendered numerous and 
exhausting by his high distinction — his long con- 
tinued and prodigious legislative labors in the councils 
of the Union, partaking in the discussions of the 
many exciting questions that have arrested or shaken 
the country — his task so successfully performed as 
the head of the State Department — and the wear and 
tear of the constant excogitation of his stupendous 
intellect, we are impressed with astonishment, not 
only at the mind that could accomplish such gigantic 
labors, but at the corporeal frame, which, for seventy 
years, could sustain the working of such huge en- 
ginery. Surely it was not of common materials, as 
it was not of common mould. It had the elements 
of rare endurance, and unwonted power. But, at 
last, exhausted, it has released its hold upon the 
great Soul that has so long inhabited and informed it. 
And yet, up to a very recent period, we could not 
speak of him as having grown old in his labors, for 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 139 



years left no enervating mark upon him, but only 
seemed to lay an accumulating wealtli of dignity and 
majesty upon that historic head. 

In the short period of our national existence, 
our country has been wonderfully fruitful of great 
men. The stirring period of her revolutionary his- 
tory was calculated to bring out and excite to utmost 
tension, whatever of talent, power, and genius then 
existed amongst her sons. The succeeding stage of 
her career was scarcely less adapted to call into re- 
quisition the utmost efforts of her children, in the 
necessity the time imposed, of reducing chaos into 
order, and organizing, launching, and boldly carrying 
forward this new government ; and intellectual capa- 
bilities could not lie idle, when such tempting fields 
of conquest stretched within the view of laudable 
ambition. And yet the eye may glance along the 
starry names that hang in the clear sky of our na- 
tional history, and it will find none of greater mag- 
nitude or brighter ray than that which has just 
ascended to take its merited position in the constel- 
lated dome. 

In real intellectual strength it is probable that 
Webster rarely had his equal since the morning of 
time. Certainly, at the time of his death, no man 
known to us, in any of the nations, evinced a like 
capacity. Strength, mental sinew, was his crowning 
characteristic. The resistless power with which he 
trod the field of contest betokened inevitable overthrow 
to those who dared oppose him. When the chosen 
champion of the South, amidst the exultations of his 
friends, endeavored to bind and fetter the arms of 



140 MEMORIALS OF 



Webster with the tough cords that had been so long 
fabricating and seasoning, the giant sat in calm repose 
till his enemies rejoiced in the anticipated accom- 
plishment of their object ; then, slowly rising, as if 
sustaining the drooping hopes of the country, with 
the light of conscious superiority beaming from his 
eye, he tore asunder the strands that bound him like 
wisps of straw, and applying his stalwart shoulders to 
the temple his adversaries had reared, whelmed the 
structure and architects in one common and undis- 
tinguishable ruin. No intellectual contest in this 
country had ever excited similar hopes and fears. 
The whole people had started to their feet at the 
eloquent and audacious assault that Col. Hayne had 
made upon him. Great and commanding as all knew 
his powers to be ; confident as was the reliance of 
his friends in the exhaustless fertility of his genius, 
yet every one but himself felt the tremor of fear that 
there was a possibility of failure, and that, in that 
time of awful responsibility, the lustre of his name 
might dim and die before the darting splendor of the 
Southern star. But, from the first moment that his 
clarion note resounded in the Senate, hope changed 
to confidence ; then peal on peal of withering sarcasm 
broke over the heads of his affrighted foes ; he brushed 
their cobweb arguments from sight, planted the pa- 
triotism of the old Bay State on an immortal emi- 
^ nence, and closed with a strain of deep and magni- 
ficent eloquence upon the blessings, the necessity, 
and the glory of the Union that has no parallel in 
the records of speech. What were his sensations 
during the delivery of this splendid oration he has 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 141 



himself narrated, in answer to a friend. " I felt " 
said he, '• as if everything I had ever seen, or read 
or heard, was floating before me in one grand pano- 
rama, and I had little else to do than to reach up 
and cull a thunderbolt, and hurl it at him ! " 

In referring to a professional argument made by 
him only five or six months since, we said of him 
and now repeat, that thirty years ago, when Webster 
was in the freshness of his ambition, and the prime 
of his physical life, he must have been the most con- 
vincing, resistless, terrific advocate that ever stood 
before a jury. So many forces mingled in him — such 
a substratum of common sense, the great primitive 
rock that supports all else — such comprehensiveness 
and sweep of glance — such imagination when he chose 
to permit its intrusion amidst his sterner thoughts — 
such diction, every word a sledge-hammer — such ca- 
pacity for stripping off all disguises in which inge- 
nuity may have dressed its sophistries — such advan- 
tages of person, of presence, manner, eye and voice 
were perhaps never united in equal proportions in 
any individual before. The arguments of his oppo- 
nents were brittle in his hands. What Gordian knots 
he could not wait to untie he rent in twain. Before 
this tribunal — a jury^ — to our mind, unquestionably, 
though this may not accord with the general view, 
Webster stood in the position, of all others, best 
adapted to display his resources and his strength. 
Some suppose that the Senate furnished the brightest 
scene for his intellectual gladiatorship. Many think, 
from the logical character of his mind, that severe 
and close ratiocination before the Supreme Court of 



142 MEMORIALS OF 



the United States was the element in which he found 
himself most at home. And some imagine, that on 
gi-eat occasions of public interest and before poj^ular 
assemblies, where he might escape from the unyield- 
ing bands of logic, and follow his inclination amid 
chosen topics, and indulge the lead of his powerful 
imagination, he rose above the standard of his usual 
accomplishment. But. in our judgment, there never 
was a place where he has been so thoroughly aroused, 
where he has come so near his possibility of effort, as 
when, standing before twelve jurors, in an individual 
case, that touched his sympathies, and fired by the 
immediate antagonism of able adversaries, he has put 
forth his energies to defend some hunted right, or 
pursue some grievous wrong. 

A prominent feature in Mr. Webster's argumen- 
tation was the extraordinary clearness, skill and com- 
pactness of his statement. His formal' statement of 
a case was itself a demonstration. A few simple 
sentences seemed to raise the question above the 
realm -of doubt, and place it beyond assault; and 
his subsequent arguments hedged it around with im- 
pregnable defences. 

Another admirable quality was his rare power of 
condensation. While other men sought to expand, 
he labored to condense. The material he used was 
not beaten into leaf, but crowded into bars and ingots. 
A graphic sentence oft contained the whole question 
and its solution. He aimed no scattering fowling- 
piece, that threw its innocent shot around the subject 
to be hit, but planted his rifle bullet in the very 
centre of the target. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 143 



No man could hear or read the speeches of Web- 
ster without being struck with the rich philosophy 
that was continually enfolding his subject. Themes 
that other men looked up to gaze at, he stooped to 
touch ; and when he touched them, lifted them into 
the sphere he occupied, enveloped them with the af- 
fluence of his own intellect, invested them with clas- 
sical allusion and golden suggestion, gave them greater 
dignity and higher views, and linked them to broader 
associations. 

Mr. Webster's person wore the significance of his 
grandeur : it was a tenement worthy of the tenant. 
His ample proportions, brawny but graceful ; his im- 
posing form, his dignified manner, his imperial port, 
his solemn gaze, his majestic and towering head — 
the vision and faculty divine that looked out of those 
comprehensive, spiritual orbs, the intellectuality that 
sat enthroned upon his massive brow, impressed the 
beholder with unwonted awe. Most great men fall 
so far short of the ideal that is formed of them, that 
they dwindle and dwarf upon approach. Distance 
of time or space lends its enchantment to the view, 
and through its magnifying mists those gods of our 
idolatry loom up into Titanic stature. But to this 
rule Mr. Webster was an exception, almost the sole 
exception. We doubt, if ever the man came into his 
presence, who did not leave with enhanced concep- 
tions of his native majesty and power. Nature had 
set her seal of greatness upon him, and the common 
voice of his countrymen, in calling him the " godlike." 
testified that that seal was not illegible to them. 

He found the solace of his pastime hours, in tlio 



144 MEMORIALS OF 



resonant voices of the waves that ocean dashed along 
the beach which margined his country home — in su- 
perintending agricultural uses — in walking, driving, 
fishing, and in the genial converse of family and 
troops of friends. He rose at the hour of three or 
four, and, in study and labor awaited the announce- 
ment of auroral dawn. The quiet and beautiful 
morning hours imparted to him strength and know- 
ledge, and garlanded with freshness his momentous 

life. 

Mr. "Webster must have left materials for bio- 
graphy of uncommon extent and opulence. The six 
volumes of his speeches which have just appeared, 
may be immeasurably extended. His manuscripts 
must disclose a vast variety and range of interesting 
composition. His diaries and correspondence would 
be seized by the public with avidity, while his con- 
versations, and the countless anecdotes concerning 
him, that rest in the memories of individuals, would 
give intense zest to his biography. We should hope 
that every one who had any anecdote or interesting 
conversation of his to relate — and who has not, that 
has ever spent a half hour in his presence — would 
commit the same to permanent form, and transmit it 
to some common destination, where it might await 
the pen of the biographer. His speeches have done 
much to educate the present generation of active 
men. In country schools, academies, and colleges, 
his sonorous sentences have formed the staple of de- 
clamation. He has thus poured his lofty sentiments 
into the minds of our youth, and every educated man 
of the country must tliis day feci that he is under 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 145 



obligations he can never repay, to the inspirations of 
Daniel Webster. Let us now have his life, and all 
the productions of his pen, and such of the utter- 
ances of his tongue as may be caught and gathered, 
that they may all float down the stream of time, a 
blessing and delight to all ages — co-existent with 
literature and liberty. Such names and such pro- 
ductions make the garniture of history. 

In the sadness of this occasion, how naturally, yet 
how sorrowfully, does the mind turn towards that 
splendid triumvirate of statesmen, — Clay, Calhoun, 
and Webster, but recently the pride and glory of the 
land, now enacting another stage of their destiny in 
the world beyond the stars. For forty years they 
had mingled their eflbrts and voices in the councils 
of the Union. Upon all great questions of public 
policy, each has left his indelible mark. Each, as 
we have stated heretofore, in himself a host — with 
physical and intellectual powers so different, yet so 
surpassing — though not always agreeing, indeed, 
sometimes at angry variance — a war among the gods 
— yet always inseparably associated — marching side 
by side through many years of pith and moment in 
the history of America and the world — pre-eminent in 
powers of thought, and in the mode of expressing 
thought ; we see them now, with the eye of memory, 
in that more than Amphictyonic assemblage — Clay, 
with his electric fire and burning and impassioned 
eloquence — Calhoun, clear, terse, logical, metaphy- 
sical, with the skill of Tell, shooting an apple from 
the head, — and Webster, calm, grand, majestic, sit- 
ting on the loftiest peaks of Olympus, darting light- 
1 



146 



MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



nings, and rolliDg thunders. But now, alas ! those 
eloquent voices are hushed ; those great hearts have 
ceased their beating ; their continuous guidance has 
been withdrawn from us ; — and the American people, 
in sorrow and orphanage, lament their loss. 



MEMORIALS OF MR. WEBSTER, 

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM ELMS FARM 
AND MARSHFIELD. 



-♦-♦-•- 



A TEIP TO NEW-HAMPSHIRE — DANIEL "VTEBSTER'S FARM ON THE 

MERRIMACK. 

Elms Faem, N. H., October — ,1849. 

* * * I asked a physician where a dyspeptic 
person, suffering from want of exercise, and liable to 
an attack from the prevailing epidemic, could go to 
eradicate the one and evade the other ? He answer- 
ed, " Among the granite hills of New Hampshire." 
The cholera was then raging in New- York, 

On the same day, at 6 o'clock, p. m., I was on 
board that paragon of steamboats, the Emjnre State^ 
commanded by the gallant Capt. Joseph Comstock, 
bound for Fall River. The next day at an early 
hour, having passed through Boston, Lowell, and 

* A portion of the following letters were published at about 
the period they were written, — those from Marshfield in the Com- 
mercial Advertiser, and several of the others in the Courier and 
Enquirer. They have all been carefully revised, however, and 
since Mr. Webster';^ death have been reproduced in the columns 
of the Daily Times^ from which they are now printed. 



148 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



other towns, with the speed of steamboat, I found 
myself here, stepping out of the car with my port- 
manteau, hunting apparatus and fishing-tackle, at a 
dingy looking depot building, on the front of which 
was inscribed, in large letters, '' Webster Place." 

A gentleman of venerable age and respectable 
appearance standing by, perceiving that I was a 
stranger addressed me in the most courteous manner. 
No tavern being near he politely tendered to me, and 
I accepted, the hospitalities of his house. He is the 
friend, and was one of the playmates and school- 
fellows of Mr. Webster. With a mind rich in re- 
miniscences, and unimpaired by age, he was as in- 
structive and entertaining as any man I have met in 
many a day. He goes back to his childhood, and 
talks of events happening then as if it were but 
yesterday. He talks about the Defender of the 
Constitution, when he was a boy, and he has 
made me quite familiar with that interesting period 
of his life, of which, by- the -by, the world has hitherto 
known comparatively nothing. I shall during my 
sojourn here, recount to you some portions of the 
conversation of this venerable man and his old 
neighbours, who sit together in the cool shades of 
these majestic elms, on pleasant afternoons, and live 
over again the scenes of their youth. 

Webster Place is at Elms Farm, owned by Daniel 
Webster, in the town of Franklin, on the banks of 
the Merrimack, the home of his late father Colonel 
Ebenezer Webster. From filial affection Mr. Web- 
ster retains and cultivates this homestead, and doubt- 
less will do so through life. I had no conception 



Webster's farm on the merrimack. 149 



that there could be found among these rugged hills, 
so far up this river, a spot so inviting, so enchanting. 
It is no wonder he loves to come here. 

Taking it for granted that you, in common with 
the millions of intelligent citizens of the United 
States, are interested in knowing whatever pertains 
to this great man — unquestionably the greatest man 
of his time, and justly the object of his country's 
pride — I will give you a brief description of his 
farming lands, of this farm, its location, and some of 
the legends wliich render it, and ever will, a place of 
interest. 

The whole extent of his farming lands in this 
vicinity is not less than nine hundred acres, which 
though composed of several tracts, do not lie con- 
tiguous to each other. I have rambled over them to- 
day. About 360 acres lie on the western hills bor- 
dering this valley, which are seeded for pastures, and 
upon it his flocks and herds feed during the summer. 
Limpid streams meander through it, and refreshing 
springs bubble up from the cool recesses of the earth 
to slake the thirst of both man and beast. 

Beautiful trees — oak, walnut, maple, pine, &c. — 
are scattered profusely over the surface, affording 
shade and shelter, and at the same time, giving it 
the appearance of a vast and highly ornamented park. 
I rode through it in different directions, and saw 
nearly one hundred head of his thriving cattle, some 
of them thorough-bred, all good, and all apparently 
as fat as seals. On these hills the sweetest kind of 
grass grows spontaneously. On the western verge 
of this tract of land there is a swelling mount, the 



150 MEMORIALS OP DANIEL WEBSTER. 

apex of which is known as " Pisgah's top." With a 
telescope in my hand I ascended it, and had a view 
of the surrounding country, well worth all the journey 
hither. 

This elevated point, which Mr. Webster owns as 
a part of his farm and values highly, he visits annu- 
ally, and thence re-surveys the scenes of his childhood 
and youth ; all of which are spread out to his view 
like a map at his feet — the streams in which he an- 
gled for trout ; the glens and the hills where, in his 
boyhood, gun in hand, he chased his game, and the 
fields he tilled with his own hands, are often revisited, 
so that every incident in that bye-gone time, is kept 
as fresh in his memory as if it had happened but 
yesterday. 

The view is magnificent. The Kearsage Moun- 
tain, in the County of Merrimack, which rises 2,461 
feet above the level of the sea, and the summit of 
which is now a bare mass of granite, but whose sides 
are covered with wood, stands out in bold relief. 
There stood its constant neighbor, Kagged Moun- 
tain, so aptly named from its rougli appearance, ris- 
ing 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. There 
stand the Mink Hills, and close by is the famous 
Meeting-House Hill. Looking beyond Ragged Moun- 
tain, I saw the summit of Ascutney Mountain in Ver- 
mont, which rises 3,116 feet above the Connecticut 
River, and 3,320 above the level of the sea. It is 
solid granite, and destitute of covering. Travellers 
make pilgrimages to its summit to take a view of the 
surrounding country. Looking in a northerly direc- 
tion, I had a good view of tlie tops of the White 



Webster's farm on the merrimack. 151 

Mountains. You are aware that the summit of that 
range of crystal hills, as they were named by Neal, 
Jocelyn and Field, who ascended them in 1632, have 
since been named Washington, Adams, JeflFerson, 
Madison, Monroe, Franklin and Lafayette. Their 
snow-white summits are seen from " Pisgah's top," 
nearly sixty miles distant, and their appearance is 
that of a silvery cloud skirting the horizon. Mount 
Washington rises 6,234 feet above the sea. This is 
known from its being the highest and most southern. 
Mount Adams is next in height, and Mount Jefferson 
is situated between these two. They are the highest 
and most celebrated in New England. 

There, too, in a more easterly direction, is a fine 
view of the Ossipee Mountain, and of its neighbors, 
the Gunstock Hills. 

He has a small farm on which he sometimes pas- 
tures sheep, situated on the other side of the river, 
which embraces about one hundred acres. 

The sheep and cattle which feed on these two up- 
land fi^rms in the summer, are, in the winter, driven 
to the homestead on the flats, and sometimes to Marsh- 
field where they are foddered during the winter. 

But the valuable land, that which affords him the 
chief inducement to own any land in this part of New 
England, is the farm which was his father's, and with 
which are associated his earliest, and perhaps fondest 
recollections. 

It comprises about four hundred acres. About 
one half of it is rich bottom land, very level, hand- 
somely laid out, and apparently under the highest 
state of cultivation ; the other half is rolling land, 



152 



MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



rising from the western boundary of the flats, up the 
gradual ascent of the higher lands, and is thickly 
wooded with the most desirable and thriving trees. 

The facility with which timber can be taken to 
market, and the rapidity with which forests have 
disappeared, render these woodlands very valuable 
— perhaps the most valuable of any lands in this 
Talley. 

It is also a great pleasure to see that the farm 
houses, the barns, the sheds, and the fences, are all 
as white as paint can make them, and every object in 
view indicates the good husbandry of the farmer who 
has them in charge. 

The Northern Railway passes through it near the 
Mansion House, and several trains of cars, freighted 
with passengers and the products of the country, with 
merchandise for the people, pass over it daily, almost 
annihilating time and space, giving all the advan- 
tages of a near approximation to Boston. Scattered 
over the surface stands a large number of aged, ma- 
jestic and beautiful elms, which enrich the picture 
beyond the power of my pen to describe. Hence the 
name " Elms Farm," by which it is known from Bos- 
ton to Canada. No passing traveller fails to admire 
its richness and its neatness. 

On the southern boundary of this farm stands 
one of the most commanding of the elms, and marks 
the spot where stood an old fort, in the time of the 
Indian wars ; and which, for many years, afi"orded 
partial protection to the frontier settlements. Tradi- 
tion startles the ear with the bloody scenes and sa- 
vage massacres in the days of that old fortification. 



Webster's farm on the Merrimack. 153 



Capt. John Taylor, who has been with Mr Web- 
ster nearly twenty years, who tills this soil, and so 
"jocundly drives his team a-field " every morning, 
without any danger to his personal safety, little 
dreams of the perils and sufferings of his predecessors 
in these identical fields. 

They went forth to plant or reap, carrying with 
them not only their hoes and sickles, but loaded 
guns, cartridges, and other weapons, to defend their 
lives when attacked, some standing sentry to watch 
the stealthy approach of the murderous Indian, while 
the others cultivated the land or gathered in the har- 
vests. How different the state of things now ! 

The legends of this beautiful spot of earth would 
fill a volume of realities '• more romantic than romance 
itself" 

On the old turnpike road, under the aged elms 
whose branches reach across the highway, affording 
perpetual shade, stand the two old dwelling-houses 
in which Colonel Ebenezer Webster, the father of 
Daniel, in his lifetime lived. One is more than one 
hundred years old, and the other more than sixty. 
In the latter he closed his career. No man was more 
respected for his many virtues. 

From where I sit, is two miles and a half to the 
head of the Merrimack river, which is there formed 
by the confluence of two beautiful streams, but re- 
joicing in harsh Indian names, viz. : 1st, The Pemige- 
wasset ; which rises in the White Hills, pours down 
their southern slopes and declivities, dashing over 
many cascades, and collecting the tribute of various 
smaller rivers and brooks in its course. It is the 



154 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



heau ideal of a mountain stream, cold, noisy, wind 
ing, and with banks of much picturesque beauty. 
2d, The Winnijnseogee ; this river issues from tiie 
great Lake of that name, which lies about N. E. 
from this spot. This lake is near twenty miles long, 
with various arms and bays like a sea. Its shores 
are mountainous and strikingly beautiful ; especially 
on the north and east. The last Royal Governor, 
John Wentworth, had his country-house on the eastern 
side of this lake. This sheet of water is hardly more 
than 20 or 25 miles from the tide waters which come 
up to Dover and Berwick. Nevertheless, it dis- 
charges its waters westerly, and they reach the sea 
through the Merrimack, at Newburyport, having 
made a circuit of about 100 miles. 

At this place the width of the river is about fifty 
rods ; but a few miles below, it receives several tri- 
butary streams which greatly increase its width, and 
render it a river of considerable magnitude. At its 
mouth it is half a mile wide. On its borders are 
situated some of the most flourishing towns in all New 
England. 

The surface of the lake of which I spoke, is, I 
think, 240 feet above tide water. The river issuing 
from it, and running to its junction with the Pemi- 
gewasset, a distance of about 15 or 18 miles, makes a 
fall of 100 feet, by several successive cascades, afford- 
ing all of them, excellent mill power. The water 
of this river is several degrees warmer, generally, 
than that of the Pemigewasset ; the difterence being 
that between a mountain stream, and a stream issuing 
from large and deep lakes. 



Webster's farm on the merrimaok. 155 

It is a curious fact, or rather tradition of a fact, 
related to me by Mr. Webster himself, who knows 
the habits of fishes, that when the Merrimack river 
was full of fish, on their arrival at the confluence of 
these two streams, the salmon and shad shook hands 
and parted ; the shad all going into the lakes, the 
salmon all keeping up the mountain torrent, which 
they continued to ascend, as used to be said, till their 
back fins were out of water. This is still the case 
with the few which annually find their way over the 
dams and other obstructions to the fountains. 

I have said, these two streams unite two-and-a- 
half miles above where I now am. The place was 
formerly called " Webster^s Falls^^ but is now the 
site of a flourishing manufacturing village called 
Franklin, or more specifically, Franklin Upper Vil- 
lage. Mr. "Webster related to me the following le- 
gend concerning a stream in which he has caught 
many a fish : — 

CalVs Brook glides meandering down a glen, 
and runs through the meadow to the river. It took 
its name from this melancholy tragedy. On the 
banks of the stream, at the foot of the glen, lived 
Philip Call. He was one of the first settlers. His 
wife, his son and his son's wife (the latter of whom 
had a small child), constituted his family. While 
the Messrs. Call were both in the field, and the elder 
and younger Mrs. Call were in the house, a small 
party of Indians came suddenly upon them, and went 
in. They were seen to enter by the men in the field, 
who perceiving them unarmed, and cherishing the 
hope that the savages would do no harm to the 



156 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



women and child, they concealed themselves in the 
field. The younger Mrs. Call, seeing the savages 
entering the house, seized her child and hid herself 
behind the rude chimney. The Indians demanded 
milk and food, which the elder Mrs. Call gave them. 
They ate till they could eat no more. All this time 
the little child, who was naturally a noisy, chattering 
thing, remained perfectly silent with its mother ; the 
least sound would have betrayed both. The elder 
lady doubtless thought that by giving them all they 
demanded, they would go peaceably away, though at 
that time a high price was paid in Canada for scalps ; 
but she was fatally mistaken ; for, instead of grati- 
tude. Indian hatred was uppermost, and those barbar- 
ous savages killed her on the spot and carried off her 
scalp, while the younger woman escaped unhurt. 
Hence the stream is called CalVs Brook. The child 
lived to a good old age, and Mr. Webster has often seen 
and conversed with her. He also told me another of 
the legends concerning this farm. 

One Peter Bowen, in those days, lived also on 
this farm. He was a high-tempered, daring man, 
and was often with the Indians. He owed two of 
them a grudge. It so happened that he was alone 
with these two very Indians, coming up the river. 
At CalVs Brook he shot one, and killed the other 
with the butt of his gun ; he carelessly left their 
bodies partially concealed under the top of a fallen 
tree. The Indians were missed. Suspicion fell on 
Peter. His known hostility, his high temper, were 
circumstances against him. Besides, Peter remained 
in his house. The bodies were found. Peter fled. 



Webster's farm ox the merrimack. 157 

At this time there was a treaty of amity between the 
whites and the Indians : and the Governor at Ports- 
mouth sent an ambassador to the Indians in Canada, 
to assure them that Peter should be caught and 
hanged. But he eluded the officers for a month, or 
more, concealing himself in the woods. At length, 
he was caught and put into the jail at Exeter. At 
that time, opinion was strong against hanging a man 
for killing an Indian, and a party of his friends and 
neighbors, disguised as Mohawk Indians, went to the 
jail, tore it down, and released the prisoner. 

After that, he was undisturbed, and for years he 
lived here, tilling this land. But the ghosts of the 
dead Indians constantly haunted him. He often 
saw, in his imagination, other Indians, armed to take 
vengeance on him, starting up from behind haycocks 
in the meadows, and lurking about his house. This 
frenzy or fear grew on him, and turned his brain, so 
that he, finally, in the other extreme, went into Can- 
ada and surrendered himself to the tribe of which his 
victims were members, and there, strange to relate, 
the affair was amicably settled. His offence was off- 
set against some other offence, and he thenceforth 
lived to a great age — the ghosts ceased to haunt him, 
and he finally died in their midst, as one of the 
tribe. 

The old Turnpike, which was lately so much 
crowded with teams, leads to Concord, fifteen miles 
below the spot, on the same side of the river. To 
Concord, as you know, the railroad comes from Bos- 
ton, via Lowell, Nashua, Manchester, and Hooksett. 
A few years since, when the anti-railroad obstinacy 



158 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL •\TEBSTEIl. 

of the dominant political party in the State was over- 
come, or broken down, a charter was granted for a 
railroad from Concord, through Franklin, to Lebanon, 
on the Connecticut River. This is the great route 
from Boston to Montreal, though it has competition 
in a more Southern route, called, I think, the Massa- 
chusetts and Vermont Railroad. This route, known 
as the Northern Railroad, will continue to be pre- 
ferred. I believe it is as near — while Manchester, 
Nashua, and Lowell, highly important manufacturing 
places, are in the line of this route, and not in that 
of the other. 

From Concord, the railroad follows the river 
through Boscawen, passes through this beautiful bot- 
tom land, where I now am (here called Intervail), 
goes much nearer to Mr. Webster's house, I dare say, 
than he would wish, and keeps on up to Frank- 
lin Upper Village. There it leaves the Merrimack, 
exactly at its head, and turning still further to the 
west than the line or valley of the Pemigewasset, it 
follows up a little stream, called Hancock Brook, to a 
beautiful lake in the woods, called " Como."' Ad- 
joining this classical sheet of water, Mr. Webster has 
forty acres of pine land, and on a distinguished point 
along the shore, quite conspicuous for a great dis- 
tance, stands his whitewashed boat-house, nine feet 
by eighteen. To use Mr. Webster's own words ; 
" The railroad having approached the lake, and done 
homage to this little edifice, inclines still farther to 
the southwest, and twists and turns, and wriggles, 
and climbs, till it finally struggles over the height of 
land near Cardigan! Mountains, and then glides down, 



Webster's farm on the merrimack. 159 



like a rippling brook, through Shaker Pond, and the 
Mascoma, its outlet, to Connecticut River." 

The house in which Col. Webster lived faces due 
north. The front windows look towards the river. 
But then the river soon turns to the south, so that 
the eastern windows look towards the river also. 
But the river has so deepened its channel, in this 
stretch of it, in the last fifty years, that I cannot now 
see its water without approaching it, or going back 
to the higher lands behind us. The history of this 
change is of considerable importance in the philoso- 
phy of streams. Mr. Webster, in a letter to a 
friend, who has allowed me to take it, says, he has 
observed it practically, and knows something of the 
theory of the phenomenon ; but doubts whether the 
world will ever be benefited either by his learning 
or his observation in this respect. " Looking out at 
the east windows, with a beautiful sun just breaking 
Gilt," says the letter, " my eye sweeps along a level 
field of 100 acres. At the end of it, a third of a 
mile off, I see plain marble grave-stones, designating 
the places where repose my father and mother, and 
brother, and sisters Mahitable, Abigail, and Sarah — 
good Scripture names, inherited from their Puritan 
ancestors. 

'• This fair field is before me. I could see a lamb 
on any part of it. I have ploughed it, and raked it, 
but I never mowed it ; somehow, I could never learn 
to hang a scythe. My brother Joseph used to say 
that my father sent me to college in order to make 
me equal to the rest of the children." 

The whip-poor-will has struck up her all-night 



160 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

song, and I'll to my couch and sleep to the time her 

music keep. 

Yours, truly. 



DANIEL TVEBSTERS FATHEE. 



Elms Farm, K H., October, 1819- 
Colonel Ebenezer Webster, the father of Daniel, 
was born at Kingston, in Rockingham County, N. H., 
in the year 1739. His father was among the original 
grantees of the land in that township in 1692, and 
settled there in 1700. The name of his great grand- 
father was Ebenezer ; this was also the name of his 
grandfather, his own father, and of himself This 
name he also gave to his eldest son, and the name is 
still descending. Col. "Webster was a farmer, born 
in those troublesome times when Kingston was a 
frontier settlement. Savage Indians were hovering 
about his childhood. The tomahawk and the scalp- 
ing-knife gleamed in the sunshine of every day, and 
his existence depended on the successful resistance 
against those frightful instruments of death and tor- 
ture. 

At an early age, he was bound as an apprentice 
to one Ebenezer Stevens, who, of course, brought him 
up. In the article of apprenticeship, Stevens was 
bound to send him to school for a certain length of 
time in each year, an obligation which, if fulfilled, 
would have given him a good common school educa- 
tion, but he violated his covenant in that respect, and 
never permitted his apprentice to see the inside of a 



Webster's father. 161 

school-house for the purpose of learning; consequently 
he had no education except what he obtained in the 
chimney-corner, by the light of blazing pine knots, 
while others slept, and what he snatched as he passed 
through his boyhood. But self-taught^ he learned to 
read and write, and made himself somewhat familiar 
with arithmetic. It is said of him, by those who 
remember him well, that he was one of the very be-st 
readers they had ever heard. The principles of elo- 
cution and oratory were intuitive in him. His voice 
was loud, clear and musical, and his reading and 
speaking were both effective. The books he took 
most pleasure in reading aloud for the gratification 
of others, were the Bible, Shakspeare, and Pope's 
Essay on Man. No professed elocutionist could ex- 
ceed him in giving effect to what those great books 
contained. 

In 1757, at the age of eighteen, he enlisted as a 
soldier in a distinguished corps called Kodgers' Ran- 
gers, engaged in the war then raging with the French 
and Indians on the frontier. This body of troops 
was taken from the boldest and hardiest of the yeo- 
manry of New England. They were required to be 
doubly armed, and to carry with them both snow-shoes 
and skates, to be used as occasion should render 
necessary. Their packs were twice the weight carried 
by common soldiers. Stark, Putnam, and several 
others who were heroes in the Revolutionary war, 
served with the youthful soldier of whom I am speak- 
ing. The exploits of the band of rangers, as related 
by those who knew them, seem like romance. All 
along the borders of Lake George, they fought despe- 



162 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

rate battles and won brilliant victories, sometimes 
with more than twice their numbers. Hardy as they 
were, those campaigns were too severe for many of 
these rangers, and they perished or fell fighting their 
battles. But Ebenezer Webster survived. He served 
under General Amherst in the reduction of Ticon- 
deroga and Crown Point. 

He was appointed a Captain, and his experience 
as a ranger, while a boy, inspired confidence in him 
as a man, and he had no great difficulty in raising a 
company in his own town. When Burgoyne had en- 
tered the territory of New-York, having taken Ticon- 
deroga, and was making rapid strides across the 
country, Captain Webster, with his company, under 
the command of the brave Greneral Stark, fled to the 
scene of action, and was engaged in the spirited and 
successful engagement with Count Baum, at Ben- 
nington. 

The following account of the part he performed 
is more brief than I can relate it. I therefore sub- 
stitute it for what I would say : — 

It had been given out by Stark some time pre- 
vious to the battle, that it was his intention to mareli 
to Stillwater, and a detachment of the British, one 
thousand strong, was consequently sent to intercept 
him. The forces of the enemy having been thus di- 
vided and weakened, the American general was en- 
abled to cope with them in detail. Col. Warner was 
stationed in the rear of the American army, with a 
reserved corps, while Captain Webster was ordered 
to advance with his company of one hundred men, in 
search of two hundred more, who were out upon a 



Webster's father. 163 

scout. The companies once united, Captain Webster 
was to assume the command of the whole, and fall 
upon the enemy in the rear, but on no account to fire 
until the action had commenced on the other side. It 
was on this memorable occasion that General Stark 
uttered the celebrated words : "Fellow-soldiers ! there 
is the enemy ; if we don't take them, Molly Stark 
will be a widow to-night ! " Captain Webster having 
fulfilled the duty assigned him in collecting together 
the three hundred men, awaited his share in the 
honors of the day. When allowed to make his charge 
upon the enemy, with pieces loaded, and with firm 
and equal step, his men advanced upon the opposing 
breastworks. Captain Webster was the first to leap 
the defences, but the reinforcements were not suffi- 
cient to render the attack successful, and his com- 
mand was driven back. Meantime the British were 
strengthened by the arrival of one thousand fresh 
troops upon the field, and a new disposition of the 
battle became necessary. General Stark placed Cap- 
tain Webster and Captain Gregg on the left wing of 
the American force. Colonel Nichols on the right, 
and placed the army in a strong position. The result 
of that struggle is a matter of history, and a large 
proportion of its fame is due to the efibrts of Ebene- 
zcr Webster, 

He was engaged in the battle at White Plains, 
and was also at the surrender of Burgoyne himself, 
on the plains of Saratoga. In every instance he 
proved himself worthy of all honor, and that confi- 
dence in him was never misplaced. 

After the peace of 1 783, having done his part in 



164 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



achieving the glorious independence of his country, 
he returned his sword to its scabbard and again re- 
sumed the arts of peace. His sons and daughters 
grew up around him, and aided him in his struggles 
with adversity. Prosperity dawnied upon him ; his 
log cabin, in which some of his chiklren were born, 
gave place to a more comfortable dwelling. For his 
toils and sacrifices he received the rewards he sought, 
which were, competence for himself and family, and 
the approval and respect of his friends and neighbors. 
He was not indebted to advantageous circumstances 
for anything, but to his own hands for all he had, all 
he accomplished. 

A large and valuable tract of country, situated 
between New England, New-York and Canada, was 
secured to the British dominions, and it became the 
interest of the Governors of New Hampshire and New- 
York to vie with each other in granting those lands 
to patentees and receiving the emoluments. 

The grants were of townships equal to six miles 
square. Sixty townships were gTanted on the west 
side of the Merrimack River, and eighteen on the 
east side. A reservation was made in each township 
of 500 acres for the Governor. The township of 
Salisbury was thus granted to Ebenezer Webster, 
Edward Eastman, Philip Call, Benjamin Pettengill, 
Andrew Bohounow, Nathaniel Melton, and others. 
The township was situated on the west side of the 
river extending far back on the hill and embracing a 
part of the present township of Franklin, and espe- 
cially that part in which Elms Farm is included. 

After this grant was obtained, Mr. Webster took 



WEBSTER S FATHER. ICo 



up his march, and with the others penetrated the un- 
broken forest, to the spot or farm he chose for his 
location, and which was then fifteen miles beyond 
Concord, the frontier garrison town at that time, and 
there, where I stood to-day, the youthful and daring 
soldier, the war being ended, cleared away the trees 
with his own hands, erected his log cabin, and estab- 
lished himself, to become a useful member of society 
— to rear a family and to defend his fireside from 
whatever danger might threaten its peace. 

While he and his friends who had ventured with 
him into that wilderness, were clearing their lands, 
observing the growth of their children, and making 
rapid progress towards independence in their worldly 
circumstances, the revolutionary storm burst out, and 
called him from his farm to the battle field. He was 
accustomed to danger, but not to fear ; and he was 
prepared, from previous training, for a sudden re- 
sponse to his country's call. 

Sometimes it happens that such men are sneered 
at, and the toils of the humble and poor are men- 
tioned, and even cast in the teeth of their children 
by way of disparagement. While I stood upon the 
spot where that log cabin stood, I called to mind what 
Mr. Webster said in August, 1840, at Saratoga, in 
reply to the imputation cast upon Gen. Harrison, 
candidate for the office of President, that he " was 
born in a log cabin V Hear him : 

" Gentlemen : It is only shallow-minded pretend- 
ers, who either make distinguished origin matter of 
personal merit, or obscure origin matter of personal 
reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condi- 



106 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

tion of early life, affect nobody in this country but 
those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and 
they are generally sufficiently punished by public 
rebuke. A man who is not ashamed of himself, need 
not be ashamed of his early condition. 

" Gentlemen, it did not happen to me to be born 
in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were 
born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of 
New Hampshire, at a period so early, as that when 
the smoke first rose from its rude chimney and curled 
over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence 
of a white man's habitation between it and the settle- 
ments on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still ex- 
ist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my chil- 
dren to it, to teach them the hardships endured by 
the generations which have gone before them. I love 
to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, 
the early affections, and the touching narrations and 
incidents, which mingle with all I know of this primi- 
tive family abode. I weep, to think that none of 
those who inhabited it are now among the living, 
and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in 
affectionate veneration for him who raised it and de- 
fended it against savage violence and destruction, 
cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, 
and through the fire and blood of a seven years' re- 
volutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no 
sacrifice to serve his country, and to raise his chil- 
dren to a condition better than his own, may my 
name, and the name of my posterity be blotted for 
ever from the memory of mankind !" 

After the peace, on the more perfect organization 



WEBSTER S FATHER. 167 



of the militia of this State, Captain Webster was pro- 
moted to the office of Colonel of a Kegiment, which 
office he long held, and took great pride and pleas- 
ure in attending to military affairs. It is said of 
him there was never a liner-looking officer in the field. 
He was a large, well proportioned, dignified looking 
man. In giving the word of command his remark- 
able voice rose above any tumult, no matter how 
great, and was heard distinctly by every man on 
parade. 

He was often elected a member of the Legislature 
of this State, sometimes to the Senate and sometimes 
to the Assembly, and he always exercised that influ- 
ence which is due to commanding talents and virtu- 
ous character. There was in his time a wealthy and 
influential family belonging to the opposite party in 
politics, who were his rivals for political distinction, 
and not unfrequently were opposing candidates. To 
promote their success they made strenuous efforts 
and brought to their aid their wealth and other ad- 
vantages, but all in vain. The recital of one of the 
deeds of the gallant Colonel, or the repetition of one 
of his patriotic speeches to his brothers in arms, 
would outweigh all that could be said or done on the 
other side, and Colonel Webster never failed to be 
chosen. In the year 1791 he was appointed a Judge 
of the Court of Common Pleas, the duties of which 
he discharged with integrity a-nd honor till his death. 

Although his edaeation was limited, being self- 
taught entirely, yet he was a man of strong, good 
sense ; he read much, and was thoroughly acquainted 
with the Constitution of the States and of the United 



168 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



States, and lie studied profoundly the laws of the 
land, as they affected the rights and duties of the 
people. His opinions were held in great respect by 
all who had the opportunity of knowing them. His 
general knowledge was very great. Like his sons, 
Ezekiel and Daniel, he excelled in conversation, and 
his society was sought by all intelligent men. 

Judge Webster selected the farm on the hill, 
where he first settled, without much regard to its soil, 
but because it was thickly wooded with pine timber 
for market, and on account of a convenient mill pri- 
vilege afforded by Punch Brook, a considerable stream 
running through it. There he built a saw-mill and 
a grist-mill. But after the timber had disappeared, 
and the population on the flat lands had greatly in- 
creased, he sold his land on the hill, and occupied 
Elms Farm, now owned, as stated in my previous 
letter, by his son Daniel. 

The Judge was twice married, and was the father 
of ten children — five by his first wife, and five by the 
second. None are now living except the sage of 
Marshfield. 

The Judge, after a life of sixty-seven years, well 
spent, died at this place. 

In the letter to which I have alluded, Mr. "Web- 
ster, speaking of his father, said " he was the hand- 
somest man I ever saw, except my brother Ezekiel ; 
and he appeared to me, and so he does now seem 
to me, as my memory restores him, the very finest 
human form that ever I laid eyes on. I saw him in 
his cofl&n — a white forehead, a tinged cheek — a com- 
plexion as clear as heavenly light ! " 



Webster's father. 169 

In the grave-yard, a little distant from where I 
am writing, repose his mortal remains. A plain 
marble slab marks the spot where he sleeps, and on 
that slab is this simple inscription : " Ebenezer Web- 
ster, Esq., Died April 227id, 1806, Aged 67." By 
the side of that grave is the grave of Daniel Webster's 
mother. On the plain marble slab that tells where 
she sleeps, is the simple inscription : " Abigail, Wife 
of Ebenezer Webster, Esq., Died April 2^th^ 1816, 
Aged 76. " 

In the letter from which I am permitted to make 
extracts, Mr. Webster thus sums up the character of 
his father : 

'• He had in him what I recollect to have been the 
character of some of the old Puritans. He was 
deeply religious, but not sour — on the contrary, good- 
humored, facetious — showing even in his age, with a 
contagious laugh, teeth all white as alabaster — gentle, 
soft, playful — and yet having a heart in him that he 
seemed to have borrowed from a lion. He could 
frown — a frown it was ; but cheerfulness, good-humor 
and smiles composed his most usual aspect. 

" He died at sixty-seven years of age — after a life 
of exertion, toil and exposure — a private soldier, an 
officer, a legislator ; a judge — everything that a man 
could be, to whom Learning never had disclosed her 
' ample page.' " 

I have seldom considered the biography of a plain 
man with more satisfaction than his. How I wish he 
could have been permitted to see the greatness of his 
son. 

8 Yours, truly. 



ITO MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF DAKTEL WEBSTER HIS BROTHERS AND 

SISTERS. 

Elms Farm, October — , 1849. 

Mr. Webster was born on the 1 8th day of Janu- 
ary, 1782, in the town of Salisbury. The house in 
which that important event happened, stood on the 
highway named the North Road, far up the western 
hill which borders on the valley of the Merrimack. 
What is Franklin was a part of that old township, 
and for a long time was called New Salisbury. The 
farm is now owned by one Captain Sawyer. It was 
originally owned and occupied by Col. Ebenezer 
Webster, the father of Mr. Webster, and of whom I 
have given you some account in a previous letter. 
Not a vestige of that habitation remains, to mark the 
place, unless it is the cellar, now partly filled up, and 
the trunk of an ancient apple-tree, the top of which 
is dead, but from which, near the earth, are sprouting 
forth a few thriving branches. From these, I cut a 
walking staff, which I have sent to my excellent 
friend, Luther R. Marsh, Esq., an eminent counsellor 
at the bar in your city. 

At a short distance from the place of his birth is 
the old well, in which hangs an " iron-bound bucket." 
This well was excavated by his father, long before 
Mr. Webster was born, and from it his family were 
accustomed to draw the pure and cool water to slake 
their thirst, as I drew it yesterday to quench mine. 
By the side of this well stands an elm-tree, planted 
by his father about the year 1 768. It has grown 
luxuriantly, and its bxanches extend over a circle 



I 



'! 



I 



HIS BIRTHPLACE. lYl 



one hundred feet in diameter — affording perpetual 
shade to the well, and to those who choose to sit un- 
der them. For more than sixty years, almost annu- 
ally, Mr. Webster has sat occasionally under that 
tree, and drank of that water. Scattered about the 
premises, near the well, are a few ancient apple, plum, 
and pear trees, which were planted by Captain East- 
man, his mother's father, and who during the latter 
part of his life, lived with Col. Webster. 

Near the spot runs " Punch Brook," which was 
then a roaring, rattling, bubbling stream, of consider- 
able importance ; but clearing the lands about its 
sources, has diminished it to a little rivulet, which 
meanders on its way along the hill-side, through 
glens and meadows, to the river. It was in this 
brook that Mr. Webster remembers he caught his 
first fish. He never passes the spot where that ex- 
ploit was performed, without relating the anecdote 
not only of taking the trout, but of the ducking he 
had when a child. 

On the opposite side of the road, is the site of 
the old mill, built by Col. Webster immediately af- 
ter he took possession of this land. Yesterday, I 
called to pay my respects to Lieutenant Benjamin 
Pettingill, a venerable old man, who related to me 
many pleasing anecdotes concerning the family of 
Mr. Webster ; and, among other things, he said, that 
he well remembered going to that mill with his grist, 
and having waited for it to be ground by Ebenezer 
Webster the eldest brother of Daniel. Two huge 
rocks projecting from the bank, on each side of the 
stream, formed the abutments of the old mill-dam, 



172 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

and the remains of the constructed portion are still 
visible. No traces remain of the old mill itself, un- 
less they are the mill-stones. After their use was 
discontinued, these valuable relics were carried up 
the bank and put into a cellar-wall, where I saw 
them. The building that stood over the cellar has 
long since gone to decay, but there stand the grind- 
ing stones facing each other, which, for many years, 
assisted in making bread for the pioneers of all this 
section of the country. Were they mine, I would 
not be Vandal enough to break them to pieces. 

There are on the farm a few fertile spots which 
rewarded its present owner satisfactorily for his toil 
and pains ; but the granite rocks visible in all direc- 
tions, render a great portion of it fit only for pastur- 
age. Such is the birth-place of the greatest man of 
our time. Is such a spot without interest ? 

Mr. Daniel Webster was one of ten children, 
himself the ninth. I will mention each one in the 
order of their ages. 

Ebenezer Webster was his eldest brother. He 
always resided at home, where he not only cultivated 
the farm but aided his father in carrying on the 
mills. He died at an early age. and was bui*ied in 
the ancient burying-ground. on the North Road. 
Daniel scarcely knew him. 

Olivia Webster was his eldest sister. I know 
nothing of her, save only that she too died at an 
early age. 

Susannah Webster, 'the next to his eldest sister, 
married Mr. John Colby. He is still living a vener- 
able and highly respected old gentleman in Bosca- 



HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 173 



wen, but she has long since been numbered with the 
dead. She left several children who reside in the 
vicinity. 

David "Webster, next to his eldest brother, married 
Mrs. Huntoon. He was a farmer, and at an early 
day removed with his family to Canada, where he 
lived and died. He had a large family of children, 
and some of the descendants are eminent men and 
women, who are making their mark on the time. 
Some of them hold important offices under the Gov- 
ernment of that country. 

Joseph Webster, the next brother, married a Miss 
Colby. He was remarkable for his ready wit. He 
too, was a farmer. He died, January 28, 1810, 
aged 41. He had two children, who I think are still 
living. 

Mahitable Webster was the third sister. She 
was a woman much beloved by her acquaintances, and 
never married. She died July 4, 1814, aged 37. 

Abigail Webster, the fourth sister, married Mr. 
Haddock, who long resided and finally died in 
Franklin. The old house in which he died stands 
near this farm. She was the mother of Dr. Charles 
B. Haddock, now, perhaps, the most eminent Pro- 
fessor at Dartmouth College, and unquestionably a 
good scholar, if not the greatest man in the State. 
Among those who know him his reputation stands 
high. He has been in the Legislature, and was pro- 
minent among the Whigs as a candidate for the office 
of Senator in Congress. 

Mrs. Haddock, his mother, long since dep.arted 



174 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



this life. Her grave is among others in the burying 
ground near Elms Farm. 

Honorable Ezekiel Webster was the next older 
than Daniel, and was his full brother — the others 
being only half-brothers. 

He was born in Salisbury, and although older 
than Daniel, yet he followed him two years or more 
through college and through the study of the law 
— not having taken up his books or made any prepa- 
ration till Daniel had made rapid advances and had 
proved what could be done under disadvantageous 
circumstances. When admitted to the bar he opened 
his office in Boscawen, and went immediately into an 
extensive and lucrative practice. 

His extraordinary talents and great pj^vate worth 
placed him in the front rank of his profession, and 
indeed in the front rank of men? His wisdom and 
solid judgment in all the affairs of men, commanded 
the respect and admiration of all. He was often in ] 

the Senate and Assembly of New Hampshire. There 
was no man Hving for whose judgment and advice 
Mr. Webster had so much respect as that of his 
brother Ezekiel. It is said of him that all he ever 
asked was the approval of Ezekiel. The applause 
of the multitude, the laudations of the press, the 
flattering attention of an entranced Senate, all 
dwindled to insignificance when compared with the 
silent but certain approbation of Ezekiel ! It is 
said of the Roman Coriolauus, that the greatest in- 
centive to action he ever had in his career of glory 
was the desire to do frequently acts that would meet 
the approbation of his mother. So it was with Mr. 



HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS. iVS 

Webster, while his mother lived ; but when she was 
no more his mind turned to Ezekiel. 

When, after his reply to Gen. Hayne. in the 
Senate, his fame rose to its zenith, and his praises 
were sounded wherever the English language was 
spoken, Ezekiel had departed this life. Then, Mr. 
Webster, as if doubtful of it all, was heard to say, 
'• How I wish my iDoor brother h ad lived till after 
this speech^ that I anight knotv if he would have been 
gratified y 

On the 10th of April, 1829, while Ezekiel was in 
Court, at Concord, in the midst of one of his most 
brilliant forensic efforts, death aimed his fatal dart, 
and he fell dead at the feet of the Judges. He died 
from a disea^ of the heart, at the age of forty-nine, 
beloved and lamented by all who knew him, and at 
that time by far the most worthy and influential man 
in this State. 

The following notice of his death was entered in 
a Pastor's Journal the day on which it took place. 

April 10, 1829. — This day witnessed the most 
solemn scene I ever beheld. At three o'clock, p. m., 
Hon. Ezekiel Webster, of Boscawen, commenced an 
argument before the Court of Common Pleas, in Con- 
cord. I sat directly before him. He stood firm, dig- 
nified. His voice, clear, full, strong. His plea con 
nected, convincing, powerful. His health apparently 
good ; and his whole appearance that of a man in the 
possession and exercise of his noblest powers. He 
had spoken about twenty minutes, when he fell back- 
wards and expired without a struggle or a groan. 
The impression of this instant was awful. Every 



176 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

face was pale ! — every heart trembled ! The immor- 
tal spirit was gone — and the realities of the invisible 
world seemed in full prospect. * In the midst of life 
we are in death.' May I never forget the scene, or 
the instruction it imparts." ; j 

I have taken some pains to ascertain the mental 
endowments, the character, and standing of this truly 
eminent brother of Mr. Webster, and everything I 
have learned has excited my admiration. I cannot, 
however, give you a better idea of him than by using 
almost the very words in which I find him described 
by one of his classmates in College. I have it before 
me and will give you what he says: ij 

In college, he was the first in his class ; his intel- 
lect was of a very high order ; its capacity was gen- 
eral, for he was able to comprehend the abstruse and 
difficult, and at the same time to enjoy the tasteful 
and the elegant. He was distinguished for classical 
literature. 

His knowledge of Greek, particularly, was beyond 
that of his cotemporaries in college ; and this is al- 
most an unqualified proof of taste, when the study is 
pursued from a real fondness for the language, and 
not merely for the pride of learning, or for the re- 
wards of superiority. 

His knowledge of English literature was deep and 
extensive, for he had not skimmed over books as a 
matter of amusement, but he looked into them as a 
man of mind, who intends to draw lessons from all he 
reads. Few men among our scholars knew so much 
of the English poets as he did, and he valued them as 
he should have done, as philosophers and painters of 



HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS. lY*/ 



human nature, from whom much knowledge may be 
obtained to illustrate and adorn what duller minds 
have put into maxims and rules 

He made himself master of the law as a science, 
and became well acquainted with its practice in his 
native State. He went up to the first principles with 
the ease and directness of a great mind, and separated 
at once that which was casual and local from that 
which is permanent and founded on the basis of moral 
justice and the nature of man. There seemed no 
effort in anything he did ; all was natural and easy, 
as if intuitive. There was nothing about him of that 
little bustling smartness so often seen in ordinary 
persons striving to perform something to attract the 
attention of the little world around them. 

His general information was not onl}'- extensive, 
but laid up in excellent order ready for use. He was 
steadily engaged in the duties of his profession, but 
never seemed hurried or confused in his business. 
He took all calmly and quietly. He did nothing for 
parade or show, or mere effect, nor did he speak to 
the audience while addressing the court and jury. 
His life was passed in habits of industry and perse- 
verance ; and his accumulations of wealth and know- 
ledge were regular and rapid. From the commence- 
ment of his life as a reasoning being, responsible for 
his own actions to the close of it, he preserved the 
most perfect consistency of character — no paroxysms 
of passion, no eccentricities of genius were ever found 
in him. His equanimity was only equalled by his 
firmness of purpose. In this he was most conspicu- 
ous ; he thought leisurely and cautiously, and having 
8* 



178 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

made up his mind he was steadfast and immova- 
ble. 

Having no hasty or premature thoughts, he sel- 
dom had occasion to change his opinion, and was, 
therefore, free from those mortifying repentances, so 
common to superior minds of warmer temperament. 

By honesty of purpose and soundness of judg- 
ment, he kept a just balance in weighing all matters 
before him. All this firmness and equanimity, and 
other virtues, seemed constitutional, and not made up 
by those exertions so necessary to most frail beings, 
who intend to support a character for steady habits. 
He was blessed with a frame that felt few or no in- 
firmities, such as weaken the nerves and bring down 
the mighty in intellect to those degrading supersti- 
tions that stain the brightness of genius and destroy 
the high hopes of immortal beings, and make them 
slaves to darkness and absurdity. 

He suffered no moral or mental weakness in his 
whole path of duty, for his constitution, until within 
a short time of his death, exhibited a sound mind in 
a sound body, and neither appeared essentially injured 
or decayed, to the hour of his exit from the world. 

He never sought public honors, nor literary or 
political distinctions, and therefore had none of those 
throes and agonies so common to vaulting ambition : 
not that he declined all public trusts, when he was con- 
scious that he could do any good to his fellow-men. 
He was several years a member of one or the other 
branch of the Legislature of New Hampshire, and 
served as a trustee of Dartmouth College. He was 
at difi'erent times put up for a member of Congress. 



HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 1*79 

but it was at periods when his friends thought that 
his name would do some good to his political party, 
as the members of Congress in New Hampshire were 
chosen by a general ticket ; but when they were de- 
cidedly in power, he would seldom or never consent 
to be a candidate. This was much to be regretted, 
for he was admirably calculated for public life by his 
extensive knowledge and incorruptible integrity. He 
would have been a first-rate speaker on the floor of 
Congress. His eloquence was impressive and com- 
manding. There was in his delivery a slight defect 
in the labial sounds — in the familiar use of his voice, 
which was rather pleasant to the listener than other- 
wise, for it was a proof of a natural manner ; but 
warmed by his subject, a more rich, full, and sonor- 
ous voice, was seldom heard in any public body ; not 
that his tones were delicate or mellifluous, but full of 
majesty and command, free from arrogance, timidity, 
or hesitation. His gestures were graceful, but not in 
the slightest degree studied ; his language was rich, 
gentlemanly, select, but not painfully chosen ; he not 
only had words for all occasions, but the very words 
he should have used. 

As a writer he excelled in judgment and taste ; 
there was a classical elegance in his familiar writ- 
tings ; and his higher compositions were marked with 
that lucid order and clearness of thought and purity 
of expression which distinguished the Augustan age. 
His sentences were not grappled together by hooks of 
steel, but connected by golden hinges, that made a 
harmonious whole. His library was rich in works of 
merit, ancient and modern. The history of literature 



180 



MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



and science was as familiar to him as that of his na- 
tive State, and he had the means of turning to it 
with much greater facility. 

He was an instance in point that a man may be a 
good lawyer, and yet devote some of his time to the 
classical pursuits. 

Ezekiel Webster was one of those great men, 
rare instances in the world, who had thrown away am- 
bition ; and who preferred to be learned and happy 
in his course of life, rather than to court the gale 
and spread his sails, to be wafted along on public opin- 
ion. He sought not popularity, but he had it ; that 
'popularity which follows^ not that which is run after. 

He watched the signs of the times, and was as 
good a diviner in politics as any one ; but whatever . 
the presages were, he looked at coming events un- 
moved, leaving their results to Heaven, 

For several of the last years of his life, he was 
curtailing his business in order to devote some por- 
tion of the prime of his manhood to literary and 
scientific pursuits, so congenial to his heart ; but in 
this he was disappointed, for yet while in the fulness 
of his strength he was called to leave the world, for 
whose benefit he was formed. The ways of Providence 
are right, however hidden the laws are from us. It 
is to be regretted that one so able should have writ- 
ten so little as he has ; probably he was waiting for 
those hours of leisure, in which he was contemplating 
to form his plan of some literary work. The writer 
once suggested to him the history of his native State 
as a subject for his pen, and the thought did not seem 
unpleasant to him. 



HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 181 



No one had a more admirable spirit of criticism 
than Ezekiel Webster, united with that generous in- 
dulgence which only great minds feel and practise. 
A few months before he died, some symptoms of a dis- 
ease of the heart were perceptible, but not alarmino- 
to his friends ; but he knew the uncertainty of hu- 
man life, and, without any special command, set his 
house in order^ and made preparation for his long 
journey. There is a beauty in that calm, deep, silent, 
religious feeling, that none but great and pure minds 
can ever know. After having put all his worldly 
affairs into a most perfect train for settlement at his 
death, and wishing his friends to be free from all 
doubts upon his religious impressions and belief, he 
sat down and wrote his sentiments on this moment- 
ous subject, which were found on his table after his 
death. This was his last composition. How true it 
is, that the enjoyment of health, the accumulating of 
wealth, the pursuits of science, and the love of let- 
ters, and the world's applause, sanctioned by the good 
man's benison, are not for an immortal mind. All 
these things are, in a great measure, connected with fel- 
low-mortals, and are finite in their influences upon the 
mind, while religion is a connection with infinity, with 
Deity ; it enters into eternity, leaves time and sense 
to earth, and by the bright inspirations of faith, takes 
the ^sting from death, and from the grave its vic- 
tory. 

A great mind, accustomed to " long converse with 
the invisible world," and seeing, day after day, his 
friends falling around him, breathes as each descends 
to the tomb. 



182 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

How dreary is this gulf ! how dark — how void — 
The trackless shores, that never were repass'd ! 

Dread separation I on the depth untried, 
Hope falters, and the soul recoils aghast ! 

Wide round the spacious heavens I cast my eyes ; 

And shall these stars glow with immortal fire ? 
Still shine the lifeless glories of the skies 1 

And coujd tliy bright, thy living soul expire 

Far he the thought ! The pleasures most sublime ; 

The glow of friendship, and the virtuous tear ; 
The soaring wish that scorns the bounds of time, 
Chill' d in the vale of death, but languish here. 

Sarali Webster, his youngest sister, was the tenth 
child, and next to him. She married her cousin, 
Mr. Ebenezer Webster, and always lived in Franklin. 
She died IMarch 19, 1831, aged twenty-one. 

In 1846, Mr. Webster in a letter to a friend, while 
speaking of his father, says : " The grave has closed 
upon him, as it has on all my brothers and sisters. 
We shall soon be all together. But this is melan- 
choly, and I leave it. Dear, dear kindred blood, 
how I love you all !" 

Peace be to their ashes. 

Yours truly. 



DANIEL WEBSTEJR IN HTS INFANCY AXD B0\1100D. 

Elms Fabm, N. H., October — , 1849. 

I shall now proceed to speak of the events of 
Mr. Webster's life. 

The first time he appeared in public, before one 
of those audiences which he has so often delighted, 



HIS INFANCY AND BOYHOOD. 183 

was wlien carried to the old church that stood on 
" Meeting-House Hill," to be christened. His speech 
on that occasion is not reported, nor was there any- 
thing recorded as to his manner, or the qualities of 
his voice ; but in the report of his speeches on subse- 
quent occasions, so much has been said about the 
dignity of his manner, his self-possession, his retorts, 
his repartees, his indignation when assailed, and of 
the strength and peculiarity of his voice ; we may 
thence infer something as to what was his deport- 
ment on his first appearance. I think he gave the 
audience a touch as to the qualities of his voice. 

The ceremony of baptism was performed in the 
most imposing manner by Eev. Jonathan Searle, who 
for many years was the clergyman of the parish. You 
should know something of the man, in order to get 
an idea of his mode of administration. Regarding 
himself as an extraordinary personage, and attaching 
great importance to his high calling and everything 
pertaining to it, he always claimed and received much 
homage from the people to whom he preached. He 
wore a tri-cornered cocked hat, powdered wig, orna- 
mented knee and shoe buckles, with the most ample 
surplice and gown. While his manner, in all cere- 
monies of the church, was pompous in the extreme, 
he was condescending and courteous to people of rank 
and respectability, and kind to all, no matter how 
humble. The christening of the child of Colonel 
Ebenezer Webster was an event of some considerable 
moment, and, of course, everything due to the occa- 
sion was said and done. 

Tradition says the day was bright and beautiful ; 



184 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

and the following anecdote is told to show how 
readily certain persons can step from what they would 
have us think the sublime, to what others laugh at 
as the ridiculous. I must tell it to you. I have 
heard Mr. Webster tell it, as he said it was told to 
him by one who saw it. 

There was a lady of the congregation by the name 
of Mrs. Clay, doubtless an excellent woman, but she 
was proud, and passionately fond of dress and dis- 
play, which was no crime. 

Her bonnet was of the most ample dimensions, 
and at this particular time it was in that respect at 
the very extreme of fashion. It was, moreover, be- 
decked with a large veil, numerous bows of ribbons 
and feathers, among which a fresh wind created much 
fluttering. The ceremony of the altar being over, 
this lady, as she was accustomed to do on such occa- 
sions, assumed a prominent position in the broad aisle 
as the congregation was leaving the house, and there 
waited till Rev. Mr. Searle, Col. Webster and his 
lady, approached, that she might speak to them, es- 
pecially to congratulate the latter on the interesting 
event that had just transpired. Having made her 
compliments to the party, and patted Daniel on the 
cheeks, she was walking along by the side of the 
stately parson across the green. In the midst of 
the courteous salutations of the pompous clergyman 
to her ladyship, a mischievous flaw of wind struck 
her bonnet and carried it away, floating like a balloon 
on the breeze, whirling and leaping down the hill 
side. Mrs. Clay, of course, was anxious for the fate 
of her best bonnet, and spoke to the parson. 



HIS INFANCY AND BOYHOOD. 185 

" Dear sir, will you pick up my bonnet ?" 

The parson, of course, condescendingly strutted 
after it, but he could not so far unbend his dignity as 
to run in the presence of his congregation. His walk 
was not sufficiently rapid to overtake the bonnet. 
She again appealed to him, at the same time follow- 
ing close to his heels, — 

" Reverend Sir, do stop my bonnet, it will be 
ruined !" 

The parson increased his strides, and, as it hung 
by a twig, came near capturing it, but just as he was 
about to clutch it, away it went again. She then 
concentrated into her voice and manner all her pa- 
thos, — 

" Do, Reverend and dear Sir, be so good as to 
hasten on and stop my bonnet ; what shall I do ! " 

The clergyman was now extending his strides to 
the utmost extent of his long legs, and was on the 
fastest walk which his dignity would permit, but the 
bonnet still whirled and twitched on beyond his 
reach ; destruction seemed inevitable ; her patience 
was exhausted ; she threw aside all restraint, and, at 
the top of her voice, forgetting the dignity of the par- 
son, she cried out — 

" Searle, you devil you^ why don't you run?" 
This appeal spurred him into a run^ by which he 
caught the truant bonnet, and restored it to the half- 
frantic lady. The race down Meeting-House Hill, by 
Rev. Mr. Searle and Mrs. Clay, in pursuit of the 
bonnet, will never be forgotten. 

The old church has long since disappeared. The 
apex of the hill on which it stood is now a part of an 



186 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



extensive pastm-e, on wliicli bleating flocks and low- 
ing herds feed at pleasure, or roam over it, uncon- 
scious, of course, of any of the past events which 
have invested it with interest to those who like to 
know the legends of that neighborhood. 

On the spot where the old meeting-house stood I 
shot a brace of birds which, to-morrow, will be cooked 
for my dinner, and, after sitting an hour, listening to 
the stories related by an aged but well-informed farm- 
er, concerning " the rude forefathers of the hamlet," 
I retui-ned to the Valley of the Merrimack, delighted 
with a pleasant day's rambling. 

After the close of the Revolutionary war, when 
business of all kinds began to prosper. Col. Webster 
bought the house still standing in a bend of the old 
turnpike road, built by one Elizabeth Gi-ale. It is a 
two-story frame building, to which has since been 
added a front piazza. Daniel was then a mere child. 
Soon after this removal, Mr. Haddock, the father of 
the eminent Professor, built the present mansion- 
house, and. after occupying it for a short time, trans- 
ferred it to Col. Webster, in exchange for the one 
built by Mrs. Gale. Thereupon, Col. Webster re- 
moved into it with his family. I described this 
house and farm in a former letter. 

Mr. Webster's first instructress was his mother. 
She taught him the letters of the alphabet, and, with 
a watchful anxiety that always distinguished her, was 
careful that her son devoted as much time as possible 
to learning. She prophesied in his infancy his future 
distinction, and fortunately lived to see her prophecy 
fulfilled. He was in Congress before she died. 



HIS INFANCY AND BOYHOOD. 187 



Happy woman ! She was remarkable for her intel- 
lect, her piety, and the truest affections. She was 
loved and respected by all who knew her, and, more 
than that, was venerated by her children. Mr. Web- 
ster has often been heard to say, his mother taught 
him to read the Bible ; he could read that before he 
went to school. 

It is often asserted by those who know the family, 
that the extraordinary genius with which Mr. Web- 
ster is endowed by nature, descended to him on his 
mother's side ; at all events, she was unwearied in 
her efforts to make him what she wished him to be — 
the first in the ranks of those around him. 

New Hampshire was backward in organizing and 
providing for common schools. At the time Daniel 
was old enough to attend, there was no regular school 
in his vicinity. But the immediate neighbors of Col. 
Webster, as well as himself, were anxious to have 
their children taught ; and, to accommodate them, a 
Mr. Chase, a schoolmaster, hired a room in the house 
of Mr. Sandborn, near this farm, and Daniel, with 
other small children, went daily to him, to be taught 
to spell and read. The house is still standing. 

The common school law of the State divided each 
town into two or more school districts. Salisbury 
was so divided that the district in which he lived ex- 
tended from the river backward several miles among 
the hills. In it there were three school-houses — one 
on the river at this place, one on the north road, and 
the third in the western part of the district. 

The trustees at length employed a Mr. William 
Hoyt, a schoolmaster by profession, for the district. 



188 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

This man taught a school for four months in the first 
school-house, then four months in the middle house, 
and then the remainder of the year in the most 
remote. 

This routine he repeated annually for several 
years. Mr. Webster was sent to Mr. Hoyt. The 
first school-house that he ever entered was built of 
logs, and stood on the easterly side of the old road, 
about one hundred yards northerly from this farm, 
between two ancient butternut trees, but not a ves- 
tige of the old house remains. 

When Mr. Hoyt occupied the middle school- 
house, Daniel attended only, carrying his dinner with 
him in a basket ; but when the third house was occu- 
pied, Col. Webster paid for his board in the western 
part of the town. He went on Monday morning, and 
came home on Saturday, making those journeys on 
his rather young and tender feet. I drove over this 
same road yesterday, and fancied I saw Mr. Web- 
ster, a little fellow, climbing the hills, crossing the 
streams, carrying a heavy heart as he went, and bring- 
ing a light one on his return. 

But Mr. William Hoyt was not eminent as a 
teacher. He was a good scribe^ and in the art of pen- 
manship he excelled, but in no other. He taught the 
boys to read and spell, to write, and to understand, to 
some extent, the fundamental rules of arithmetic. 
He was severe in his discipline, and played the tyrant 
to the extent of his brief authority over the unlucky 
little fellows who, perchance, went counter to his de- 
crees. A year or two enabled Mr. Webster to learn 
from him all the pedagogue could teach that was 



HIS INFANCY AND BOYHOOD. 189 

worth knowing. But William Hoyt had the honoi 
of being one of the teachers of the first man in this 
country, and his memory is entitled to our respect. 
" He taught that boy," was his chaplet— his claim to 
renown. 

Under the teaching of this master, Mr. Webster 
learned to write a beautiful hand. 

Among those who taught Mr. Webster, and the 
next in order to Mr. Chase, was a Master Tappan, now 
known as Colonel Tappan, who sMll lives, at the age 
of eighty-two, and is kindly remembered by his pupil. 
There he learned to spell ; it is said of him there was 
no word in the spelling book that was not also in his 
memory. There, too, he learned the rudiments of 
arithmetic. With his rude slate and pencil he could 
work out the simple problems, taught by such a mas- 
ter, in such a school. He learned the art of reading 
well from his excellent father, who was noted for this 
accomplishment. 

His love of elocution, his taste for oratory, his 
knowledge of true eloquence, which have shone con- 
spicuously on all subsequent occasions, were the result 
of twigs first bent in the right direction, by hearing 
his father read as lie could read^ the Bible, Shakspeare 
and Pope. 

Professor Sandborn, who relates many incidents 
concerning him, says that aged men, who are familiar 
with his early life, mention, among their earliest re- 
collections of his childhood, a fondness for books above 
his years. His father kept open doors for all travel- 
lers. The teamsters, who came from the North, were 
accustomed to say, when they arrived at Judge Web- 



190 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



ster's touse, " Come, let us give our horses some oats, 
and go in and hear little Dan read a Psalm. " They 
always called for him ; and, leaning upon their long 
whip-stocks, listened with delighted attention to the 
elocution of the young orator. 

Yours, truly. 



DANIEL WEBSTER A BOY OUT-DOOR SPORTS FIRST TIME HE READ 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Elms Faum, N. H., Oct. — 1849. 
Mr. Webster did not, of course, go to school every 
day. He had a due regard for that old saying : " All 
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." There 
were Saturday afternoons, holidays, and occasional 
pretty long vacations, which he hailed with delight — 
and he frequently took a holiday, as all boys will, on 
his own account. On these occasions he entered 
zealously into all kinds of out-door amusements. Be- 
sides he did boy's work on his father's farm. 

He rode the horse in plowing furrows between 
rows of corn ; he raked the hay, followed the reapers 
and bound up the wheat as they cut it ; he drove the 
cows to their pastures in the morning and home again 
at night. No little hands or little feet could accom- 
plish more than his in anything not beyond his fcrength. 
I have to-day conversed with an old farmer who, in 
his boyhood, labored with him in the field many a 

day. 

During the season for " haying and harvesting, " 
Daniel always staid from school, as a matter of course^ 



OUT-DOOR SPORTS. 191 



and went into the fields with the men to do what he 
could to gather in the crops, for the hay was to be 
made while the sun shone, and the grain was to be 
cut when it was ripe. With his straw hat, his '•' tow 
frock and trowsers," his rake or sickle in hand, he 
worked from morning till night, and never was heard 
to complain. He shrunk not from industry when it 
was apparent it could be turned to a good account. 

He obtained, by working on the farm, a thorough 
knowledge of agricultural business, and the taste ac- 
quired for it then has continued, and is now his 
strongest passion. In these fertile fields, beneath 
these elms, he imbibed his first ideas of farming, 
which have ripened into a knowledge not surpassed 
by any agriculturist of the age in which he lives. 

In his great speech on " The Agriculture of Eng- 
land," at a meeting of the members of the Legislature 
of Massachusetts, and others interested, at the State 
House, in Boston, January 13th, 1840, he began by 
stating that " he regarded agriculture as the leading 
interest of society ; and as having in all its relations, 
a direct and intimate bearing upon human comfort 
and national prosperity. He had been familiar- with 
its operations hi his yoiUh^ and he had always looked 
upon the subject with a lively and deep interest." 
His speeches in England and at Rochester, N. Y., all 
confirm what I have said. 

He had a strong propensity for out-door recrea- 
tions at that early period of his life, and he has culti- 
vated it from that day to this. No man in the coun- 
try is more fond of fishing, hunting, sailing, riding, or 
driving, than Mr. Webster. He has not the least 



192 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

taste or fondness for in-door amusements. He never 
played a game of cliess or checkers in his life ; nor 
billiards, nor ten-pins. He never played, and it is 
said, does not know, a game of cards, besides whist, a 
game which he will play with ladies or gentlemen in 
the evening, before his early hour for retiring. His 
passion is. and always was, for out-door recreations. To 
this he is unquestionably much indebted for the robust 
constitution he established on arriving at manhood, 
and which he has sustained throughout his career. 
In his childhood and youth he was not robust, but on 
the contrary, he had what was regarded a feeble con- 
stitution. He appeared like a youth inclined to con- 
sumption. 

I went to-day to some of the places where he in- 
dulged his propensity for out-door amusements. A 
quarter of a mile beyond the site of the old school- 
house, is the hill where he so often went to slide. My 
informant, an aged lady, says, that in the coldest of 
the weather, the little fellow could be seen trudging 
along through the snow with his sled, to join Deacon 
True's boys, and others, in the exciting but toilsome 
sport of sliding down hill. 

At times the snow covered up the fences, and left 
nothing to intercept his descent from the top of the 
hill to the current of the Merrimack. So intent was 
his mind on this sport, and so regardless of the cold- 
ness of the weather on one occasion, that the toes of 
both his feet were frozen, and he was compelled to 
suffer the privations of being confined to the house, 
too lame to walk. He used to say '• there was great 
fun in sliding down hill, but there was not much fun 



OUT-DOOR SPOr.TS. 



193 



in hearing his father scold when he stayed out of 
school to enjoy it." 

I went also to the pond where in the summer- 
time he used to bathe, where he learned the art of 
swimming, and where, in the winter-time, the water 
being frozen, he indulged in skating. No one of his 
years could excel him in either art. These were 
both invigorating exercises, and not only afforded 
him great amusement, but trained his physical ener- 
gies for subsequent labor, which, without it, would 
have broke down many a more robust frame. 

He had a passion for fishing, and it was perhaps 
as strong in him naturally as it was in old Izaak 
Walton. I went, to-day, to see the four brooks in 
which he indulged this propensity whenever he had 
an opportunity. The name of one is Punch BrooJc^ 
of which I spoke in a former letter, of another Mid- 
dle Brook^ of another Slirmp Iron Brook^ of the 
fourth Wigivag Brook. They were all very near. 
In days of yore, these brooks were famous for trout 
fishing, and he knew every hole, every lurking-place, 
in which these speckled beauties were found, between 
their entrance into the river, and the fountains whence 
they flowed. With his rude fishing-rod cut from the 
bushes, his lines made of horse-hair, than which no 
better have since been contrived, and his hooks bought 
of pedlers, as soon as dismissed from school, or re- 
leased from the task his father gave him to perform, 
he went to trace those streams, and it was rare in- 
deed that he ever returned without being heavily 
laden with the trophies of his skill and patience. 
His skill in shooting, w^hich in subsequent life has 

9 



.J^ 



194 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



rendered him famous as a good shot, was early ac- 
quired, and all along this valley, up the glens and on 
the mountain sides, he delighted to roam, with his 
dog and gun, in piu'suit of game. Tradition points 
out several places where his eminent skill was dis- 
played, and although it is not said of him, as it was 
of the famous shot, Captain Scott, viz., that all the 
raccoons and squirrels on seeing him in pursuit of 
them, invariably told the Captain that he need not 
take the trouble to fire at them, for they were as good 
as dead, and would come down to meet him at the 
foot of each tree, yet enough is said to prove that 
those animals might have told Mr. Webster a similar 
tale. He never missed them. 

His father was very strict in all religious observ- 
ances, and required, among other things, that his son 
should go every Sunday to Church, though the dis- 
tance was about four miles. Mr. Webster complain- 
ed of the hardship, for he must needs walk all the 
way. His father said to him : 

" I see Deacon True's boys there every Sunday 
regularly, and have never heard of their complaining." 

'• Ah ! but," said Daniel, '* Deacon True's boys 
live half the way there, and, of course, have only half 
as far to walk." 

" Well," said his father, " you may get up in the 
morning, dress yourself, and run up to Deacon True's, 
and go with them ; then you will have no farther to 
walk than they do." 

The logic of his father was conclusive; for he 
never considered it a hardship to be permitted to run 
up to Deacon True's, to play with his boys, and that 



OUT-DOOR SPORTS. 195 



the hardships, if any, ky beyond the Deacon's resi- 
dence. On every good old New England Sabbath, 
therefore, when the weather would permit him, Mr. 
Webster was found at church, notwithstanding the 
distance. 

Mr. Webster himself told me the following anec- 
dote of a bit of fun. When he was about ten years 
of age, as a great favor his mother gave him half a 
dollar and permission to visit one of his aunts, dis- 
tant some ten miles beyond thi? place. Accordingly 
he set forth the next morning early, and made the 
journey on foot. His purpose was to spend several 
days. On arriving at his place of destination, the 
first important object that arrested his attention was 
a splendid fighting-cock, strutting and crowing in the 
barn-yard. He scanned his apparent powers with se- 
cret but delightful anticipations, for one of his neigh- 
bors had a conquering rooster, against which he held 
a grudge, and which was the terror of every cock in 
this vicinity. As soon as he had passed the usual 
salutations with his aunt, who was of course delighted 
to see him, he began to negotiate for the purchase of 
the game-cock. It resulted in his becoming the 
owner of the bird for the said half dollar, all he had, 
which he promptly paid. During the night his anti- 
cipations and his impatience for morning to come 
were so great he could scarcely sleep a wink, tired as 
he was. At an early hour he was up and had his 
game-cock safely in his possession. No entreaties on 
the part of his aunt could induce him to stay a mo- 
ment after he had had his breakfast. 

With the rooster in his arms, he set out for home. 



196 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

On his return, lie had not proceeded far before he 
passed a barn-yard filled with hens, among which, he 
spied a cock manifesting his fighthig propensities. 
On seeing what he held in his arms, the cock on his 
own ground, gave the usual challenge for a battle. 
No sooner intimated than done, down went this 
champion in the midst of the flock, and the sparring 
commenced. The battle was bravely fought on both 
sides. No lovers of cock-fighting ever saw a more 
satisfactory contest. But the challenging party bit 
the dust. 

My game cock, said he, stood over his prostrate 
foe, and flapping his wings, crowed his victory. 
Thereupon he took his hero in his arms and again 
trudged on his way. In the course of the next mile 
he came to another yard. Here he displayed his 
champion, he was challenged, gave battle, and came 
off victorious as before, and came near having a bat- 
tle with another boy of his age. Thus he journeyed 
on, giving battle at every barn-yard he passed where 
a cock would fight, always triumphant. At length 
he reached the yard of his neighbor who owned the 
cock against which he had the grudge. The day 
was well-nigh spent. His rooster had fought several 
times. He doubted the policy of letting him fight 
the most important battle under such circumstances, 
Imt being impatient, and seeing that his hero seemed 
fresh, for he had carried him in his arms, and inas- 
much, as on seeing his antagonist, he seemed fierce 
for the fight, he let him slip. 

The battle began. For a while the contest was 
an even one ; but in ten minutes he had the satisfac- 



OUT-DOOR SPORTS. 19*7 



tion of seeing his hero victorious. He also saw the 
cock against which he had the grudge and which had 
again and again driven his own fowls from his own 
yard, led about by the comb in a manner as degrad- 
ing as the old Romans led their conquered foes while 
c-elebrating their triumphs of arms. Wellington, 
after the battle of Waterloo, was not better satisfied 
with the results of the day than he was with the re- 
sults of his day. 

On the left hand going towards the more settled 
part of the town of Salisbury, known as the Northern 
Road, on Punch Brook, stands an old saw mill, where 
Mr. Webster's father, more than sixty years ago, 
built himself a rude-looking mill. The place is a 
dark glen, and was then surrounded by a majestic 
forest, which covered the neighboring hills. The 
mill was a source of income to Colonel Webster, and \ 
he kept it in operation till near the end of his life. 
To that mill, Mr. Webster, though a small boy, went 
frequently, when not in school, to assist his father in 
sawing boards. He was apt in learning anything 
useful, and soon became so expert in doing every- 
thing required, that his services as an assistant were 
valuable. Hence, the reason for his being employed 
there when not absolutely required elsewhere. But 
his time was not misspent or misapplied. After " set- 
ting the saw" and "hoisting the gate," and while the 
saw was passing through the log, which usually occu- 
pied from ten to fifteen minutes for each board, Dan- 
iel was reading attentively some book he was per- 
mitted to take from the hou>se. He had a passion 
thus early for reading histories and biographies. 



198 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

There (let it be mentioned to his credit), in that 
old saw mill, surrounded by forests, in the midst of 
the great noise which such a mill makes, and this, too, 
without materially neglecting his task, he made him- 
self familiar with the most remarkable events recorded 
by the pen of history, and with the lives and charac- 
ters of the most celebrated persons who had lived in 
the tides of time. He has never forgotten what he 
read there. So tenacious is his memory, that he can 
recite long passages from the old books which he 
read there, and has scarcely looked at since. The 
solitude of the scene, the absence of everything to di- 
vert his attention, the simplicity of his occupation, 
the taciturn and thoughtful manner of his father, all 
favored the process of transplanting every idea found 
in those books to his own fresh, fruitful and vigorous 
mind. I have not made a visit to any of the scenes 
of Mr. Webster's boj'hood, more interesting than this 
old mill. The Academy of Science, his alma tnater^ 
is not invested with more interest : no, not half so 
much. 

Mr. Webster related to me the following interest- 
ing anecdote which had some influence on his after 
life. 

After the Constitution of the United States had 
been adopted by all the States of the Union, and had 
gone into operation, of course its good results were 
apparent, and the people began to read and venerate 
it. It was printed in all forms and widely circulated. 
But the first time that he saw it, he found it printed 
at length on some fine cotton handkerchiefs for sale 
at a neighboring store. He paid all the money in his 



FIRST TIME HE READ THE U. S. CONSTITUTION. 190 

purse for one handkerchief, and carried it home. On 
the same afternoon he sat under the shade of the old 
ehn tree, near his father's house, and read and re-read 
that wonderful work of man. Considering the fact 
that to him more than to any other man, living or 
dead, is due the credit of being its ablest, its most 
zealous, and most constant defender, is there not 
much importance attached to the place where Mr. 
Webster first read the Constitution ? 

As I was to-day standing on the identical spot, 
I could see him in my mind's eye. There he sat, 
beneath the wide-spreading branches of that old tree, 
on a rude bench, with the handkerchief spread out 
in his lap, poring over its wisdom, drinking in ideas 
which for more than half a century have been shin- 
ing lights, guiding the footpaths of his countrymen 
through paths beset with perils, of which the history 
of the world furnishes no parallels. Fortunate 
incident ! 

I take the following anecdote from the letter to 
which I have before alluded and given to me for this 
purpose. 

" Of a hot day in July — it must have been one 
of the last years of Washington's administration, I 
was making hay with my father, just where I now see 
a remaining elm-tree, about the middle of the after- 
noon. The Hon. Abiel Foster, M. C, who lived in 
Canterbury, six miles off, called at the house, and 
came into the field to see my father. He was a 
worthy man, college learned, and had been a minis- 
ter, but was not a person of any considerable natural 
powers. My father was his friend and supporter. 



200 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

He talked awhile in the field and went on his way. 
When he was gone, my father called me to him, and 
we sat down beneath the elm, on a haycock. He 
said, ' My son that is a worthy man — he is a mem- 
ber of Congress — he goes to Philadelphia, and gets 
six dollars a day, while I toil here. It is because he 
had an education, which I never had. If I had had 
his early education I should have been in Philadel- 
phia in his place. I came near it, as it was. But I 
missed it, and now I must work here.' ' My dear 
father,' said I, ' you shall not work. Brother and I 
will work for you, and wear our hands out, and you 
shall rest' — and I remember to have cried, — and I 
cry now, at the recollection. ' My child,' said he, 
' it is of no importance to me — I now live but for my 
children ; I could not give your elder brother the 
advantages of knowledge, but I can do something 
for you. Exert yourself — improve your opportunities 
— learn — learyi — and when I am gone, you will not 
need to go through the hardships which I have under- 
cone, and which have made me an old man before 
my time." 

Yours tnily. 



TUOS. W. THOMPSON ^LAW-OFFICE LATIN GR.\MMAR REASONS 

FOR GOING TO AN ACADEMY GOES TO EXETER DR. ABBOTT. 

Elm3 Farm, N. II., September, 1849. 
In the year 1791, there came to reside in this town 
a young lawyer by the name of Thomas W. Thomp- 
son, who opened an office a short distance from this. 



LATIN GRAMMAR. 201 

and boarded with Col. Webster's family. I will tell 
you more about thiis gentleman in another letter. 

In 1795, Mr. Thompson, having no students or 
clerks, and being often away on business, induced 
Daniel to stay in his office while he was absent, to 
tell his clients, and those who called, where he had 
gone and when he would be home. He was then in 
his thirteenth year. Mr. Thompson gave him a Latin 
grammar, which he committed to memory. He had 
no object in learning it except to gratify Mr. Thomp- 
son. He had never dreamed of studying Latin or 
Greek, or of going to college, nor had his father 
thought of any such thing. Daniel expected to fol- 
low in the footsteps of his father and elder brothers, 
to cultivate the soil, and, while a boy, to obtain what 
was termed a good common school education, that he 
might be respected as a man. Nobody had yet dis- 
covered the giant intellect God had bestowed upon 
him. unless, perhaps, his devoted mother. But the 
facility with which he learned the Latin Grammar, 
and the tenacity of his memory, arrested the attention 
of Mr. Thompson, who spoke of it to Col. Webster. 
In the Spring of 1796, the idea of sending him to an 
academy to qualify him to be a scliool teacher^ was 
entertained by his father. Mr. Thompson advised it, 
and his mother urged it. His brother Joseph, who 
had arrived at the age of manhood, favored his going, 
by way of the joke which I related to you in a pre- 
vious letter. He said, inasmuch as Daniel was not 
as smart by nature as the other members of the 
family, he hoped his father would send him to an 
academy, so that with the advantages it would give 
9-^ 



202 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

him, he would be equal to his brothers and sisters; or, 
to use his own words, '• know as much as the rest of 
them." 

The fact that Daniel had what was regarded 
a slender constitution, was thrown into the scale to 
favor the idea of his going to school, to qualify himself 
for doing some less laborious work than that of the 
farm. 

To send one of ten children away to an academy, 
perhaps at the expense of the others, was, in the eye 
of Col. Webster, a partiality. He hesitated in tak- 
ing such a step, indeed, he doubted whether it would 
promote either Daniel's happiness or prosperity. 
There have been many instances in which fathers 
have reasoned thus. He could not of course foresee 
the great results that followed. But considering 
what was said by Mr. Thompson about his capacity 
for learning, and taking into account the young man's 
constitution. Col. Webster finally came to the con- 
clusion that it would be well for Daniel to qualify 
himself as a schoolmaster. He could in that case work 
on the farm during the summer months, and in the 
cold winter season when his health would not permit 
him to work out of doors, he could teach a school. 
Other young men had done as much in this vicinity, 
and the experiment had proved profitable so far as 
the cost of them was concerned, and above all highly 
advantageous to the 3'oung men themselves. These 
considerations induced his prudent father to send him 
to the academy ; ninety-nine of every hundred would 
have reasoned like him. Could the book of the 
future have been opened to him when he resolved to 



GOES TO EXETER. 203 



place his son on the road to fame, how the vision 
would have stirred his heart ! When his father's 
judgment was once convinced, he never drew back 
from his purposes. He was a just and excellent man. 

On the 24th May, 1796, on a bright and sunny- 
day, Mr. Webster set out for Phillips' Academy, in 
Exeter, in the County of Rockingham, in this State. 
He was a small boy for one of his age. At that time, 
there were few, if any, light carriages in this part of 
the State, and the roads, in all directions, were bad ; 
most of the travelling, for any considerable distance, 
was done on horseback. One of the neighbors wished 
to send a horse and side-saddle to Exeter for a lady 
to ride to this place. He availed himself of this 
opportunity. Col. Webster mounted his own horse, 
and Daniel, dressed in his new homemade suit, mounted 
the horse with the side-saddle. They journeyed on 
slowly, down the Merrimack to the mouth of the Sun 
Cook River, and then up its valley to Allenstown, 
where they stayed the first night. Although the 
distance was not great, yet the little fellow, unaccus- 
tomed to riding far, was tired enough. The next 
day, refreshed by sleep, they set out again, and con- 
tinued their journey as far as the town of Poplin, 
where they stayed the second night. Mr. Webster 
had never been so far from home before. The third 
day they reached their place of destination, long be- 
fore night. 

Although his father was born at Kingston, six 
miles distant, yet there were but two or three persons 
in Exeter whom he knew. One was a Mr. Cass, the 
father of his Excellency, Governor Cass. Another 



204 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

was a Mr. Clifford. With the latter, Col. Webster 
procured a place for Daniel to board, so that he took 
his lodging there the third night. The next day, he 
went with his father to the academy to apply for 
admission. Benjamin Abbott, LL. D., was then at 
the head of the academy. He felt and carefully 
maintained the dignity and importance of his posi- 
tion. To him, of course, the application for admis- 
sion was made. The learned Doctor, then a young 
man, was seated in the great hall. He always did 
every thing ofl&cial with pompous ceremony. 

" Well, sir," said he, putting on his cocked hat, 
" let the young gentleman be presented for examina- 
tion." 

Mr. Webster, with his hat in his hand, modestly 
advanced, and stood before him. He was in a strange 
place, and strangers were around him, but he was 
self-possessed. It is his nature to be self-possessed. 

" What is your age ?" 

" Fourteen." 

" Take this Bible, my lad, and read that chapter." 

The chapter given him to read was 22d chapter, 
Gospel according to St. Luke. A description of the 
conspiring of the Jews, the betrayal of Christ by 
Judas, the denial by Peter, &c. Daniel took the 
book, and read in a clear tone, with due emphasis, as 
he had been taught by his father to read. He was 
equal to the occasion. He was able to concentrate 
his mind on the matter, and to control his manner. 
The Doctor listened with astonishment ; and, as the 
young man before him proceeded, giving full effect to 
every word of that beautiful narration, he seemed in 



DR. ABBOTT. 



205 



a trance, and never interrupted him. He read to the 
end. Such a trial would have been severe for most 
boys, but in that exercise Daniel was perfectly at 
home. He shut up the book and handed it to Dr. 
Abbott, who asked him no more questions. 

'• Young man," said he, "you are qualified to en- 
ter this institution." 

He had never before heard the chapter better 
read. 

That school was founded in 1781, by one John 
Phillips, LL. D. ; hence its name. He made it lib- 
eral donations; $100,000 during his life, and at his 
death $50,000 more : and it had already acquired 
a high reputation. It was regarded as the best lite- 
rary and scientific institution in the State. In 1795, 
the year before Daniel went there. Dr. Phillips had 
died, bequeathing to it a large portion of his wealth. 
This raised it almost to the importance of a college. 
The building stood on a plain near the centre of the 
town, and it was well provided with accommodations 
for the different branches of instruction. Among 
other advantages it possessed was a large hall for 
declamation and the annual exhibitions. The insti- 
tution was endowed with a salary for the Principal, 
and a salary for a Professorship besides. Phillips 
had made it independent. 

This venerable man (Dr. Abbott) retired from 
the head of this institution in 1839, having presided 
over it for fifty years, and having, for a considerable 
time before his promotion to the place of Principal, 
been engaged in the humblest ranks of instruction. 
He has been, in fact, a schoolmaster of sixty years 



206 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEB3TER. 

standing. He has withdrawn to the repose of his 
family, after an amount of labor and usefulness which 
has no parallel among the teachers of this country. 
The endowment of this Academy, and the respect- 
ability of its corps of teachers, placed it on a par 
with not a few American Colleges ; and it was for 
many years without a rival as a school of preparation 
for College. A thorough English education was fur- 
nished by it to those who were not seeking for clas- 
sical attainments. Other schools and academies have 
since sprung up in various parts of the country, which 
may have diminished the relative importance of this, 
but without affecting the merits of the faithful men 
who have maintained its repute, and have given so 
useful an impulse to the general cause of public edu- 
cation. 

Among the three thousand boys who have been 
also taught by Dr. Abbott, at that School, are Lewis 
Cass, Levi Woodbury, Alexander H. and Edward 
Everett, Jared Sparks, Greorge Bancroft, Henry 
Ware, Jr., John G. Palfrey, John A. DIx, and 
Joseph S. Buckminster — all eminent men, who have 
made their mark on the time. The Doctor possessed, 
in a high degree, those personal qualifications of a 
teacher, which, in all countries, and under all systems 
of education, constitute the most important — the in- 
dispensable requisites for success. In these qualifi- 
cations Dr. Abbott stands pre-eminent. He is a tho- 
rough classical scholar — an export in all the branches 
which he assumes to teach. He has that self-knowledge 
which gave him a ready intuition of the modes of 
thought and the springs of action in other miuds, 



DR. ABBOTT. 207 



especially those of the young, upon whom he is exert- 
ing his influence. 

No one is better versed than himself in that diffi- 
cult subject, " the human nature of boys," the want 
of which knowledge has disabled so many eminent 
men (even in some of our Universities) from the effi- 
cient performance of the functions of a teacher. 

It is said of him, by one who knew him well, that 
by this happy degree of self-knowledge, and conse- 
quent power of adjustment to the capacities and ten- 
dencies of youthful minds. Dr. Abbott was always 
able to engage their attention, and to communicate 
with facility the desired instruction ; a practical art, 
for which the highest accomplishments, and the most 
earnest and praiseworthy diligence can never be sub- 
stituted with due effi^ct in producing the best fruits 
of education. The strict order and application to 
study, which mark the department of the efficient 
teacher, never failed to be visible under the adminis- 
tration of Dr. Abbott, who secured obedience and di- 
ligence by his sincerity and straightforwardness of 
purpose, dignity of manners and regularity of system ; 
while his constant aim was to cultivate the better 
feelings of his pupils, to inspire them with self-re- 
spect and a love of truth, and to incite them to the 
pursuit of good learning for its own sake. Mr. Web- 
ster and those above-named, in common with all who 
wished to succeed, felt that no rules could be broken 
without detriment to themselves, even if there were a 
chance for impunity ; and that, under so considerate, 
just, and kind a teacher, no requisitions would be 
imposed that were not designed for the general good. 



208 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Submission was thus rendered easy without being 
servile ; and to offend was not only regarded as a 
breach of law, but of an honorable confidence reposed 
in them by one who was more grieved than ofiended 
at their faults, and whose highest satisfaction was in 
their progress and success. 

Mr. Webster remained at that Academy only 
nine months. He gave his attention chiefly to the 
English branches, viz., grammar, arithmetic, geog- 
raphy, and rhetoric ; but he incidentally pursued the 
study of the Latin language. His success in all was 
such as to excite the highest admiration of Mr. Ab- 
bott. Having discovered in the very outset the ca- 
pacity of the young gentleman, lie gave him full 
scope, and brought him forward as rapidly as he 
could. When Mr. Webster left that school, at the 
age of fourteen, he understood the English and the 
Latin languages. 

He had responded to the weekly call for a compo- 
sition in writing, "but he could not make a speech." 
On this subject he says of himself, in a short memoir 
of Joseph S. Buckminster : '• My first lessons in Latin 
were directed by Joseph Stevens Buckminster, at that 
time an Assistant at the Academy. I made tolera- 
ble progress in all the branches I attended under his 
instruction, but there was one thing I could not do ; 
I could not make a declamation — I could not speak 
before the school. The kind and excellent Buck- 
minster especially sought to persuade me to perform 
the exercise of declamation, like other boys, but I 
could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to mem- 
ory, and rehearse in my own room, over and over 



DR. ABBOTT. 209 



again ; but when the day came, when the school col- 
lected, when mj name was called, and I saw all 
eyes turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself 
from it. Sometimes the masters frowned, sometimes 
they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed and 
entreated with the most winning kindness, that I 
would only venture once ; but I could not command 
sufficient resolution ; and when the occasion was over, 
I went home and wept bitter tears of mortification." 

Here, then, is a striking fact : the man who, dur- 
ing the first nine months at an Academy, though a 
good reader, and naturally self-possessed, could not 
deliver a speech ! and yet, afterwards he became the 
greatest Orator of his time ! Bashful boys, take 
courage. 

Dr. Abbott still lives, and the proudest act of his 
life is his teaching that boy. He talks with enthu- 
siasm of the exploits of his pupil, and Mr. Webster 
never fails to express his obligations to Mr. Abbott 
for the pains he took with his education during the 
brief period it was his happiness to be under his 
charge. 

The following description of the retirement of 
the Doctor in 1839, you may have seen, but I will 
give it in connection with what I am writing. Hav- 
ing attained the age of seventy- seven years, and hav- 
ing filled the measure of his long and faithful services. 
Dr. Abbott announced his determination to resign 
his office at the conclusion of the summer term. 
This was to a large number of his pupils, to all whose 
health or business would permit their attendance, a 
signal for a spontaneous rally once more around their 



210 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

venerable teache r.iid friend, to oflFer him a heartfelt 
tribute of gratitude and respect. His portrait, paint- 
ed by Harding for this occasion, will faithfully trans- 
mit the lineaments of his countenance to after days. 

The festival at Exeter, near the end of August 
in that year, surpassed in interest the previous bicen- 
tennial celebration of the founding of Harvard Uni- 
versity, in 1836. The dining hall selected for the 
festival, was filled by a long procession of Dr. Ab- 
bott's former pupils, from all parts of the country, 
en more gladdened by the familiar salutation, and 
grown young again in the presence of their ancient 
instructor ; renewing the friendships which time had 
interrupted ; revisiting the homes of the hospitable 
inhabitants which had sheltered their early days ; 
tracing once more the scenes of their boyish sports, 
and sadly bidding farewell to friends, whom most of 
them were to see no more. 

Political and all other divisions were for the time 
forgotten, as they listened to the eloquent and ap- 
propriate addresses of Mr. Webster, E. Everett, and 
the other speakers whom the occasion inspired. All 
eyes were directed toward the man of the day. Dr. 
Abbott had prepared an address to the assembly. 
They clustered about him in breathless expectation. 
He arose to tender his acknowledgments and a part- 
ing benediction. The scenes and events of so many 
years came crowding upon his mind. His '"boys" 
of days long gone by, were gathered in his presence 
with every demonstration of the warmest attach- 
ment. His eye fell upon those whom he had instruct- 
ed, counselled, guided, and for whom his prayers had 



HE TEACHES SCHOOL. 211 

SO often ascended to the throne of mercy. Some had 
fallen asleep. Perhaps at that moment of intense 
emotion the image of his lamented son, taken from 
him in early life, might have passed before his mind, 
as it glanced from the present to the lost. Overcome 
by the conflict of his emotion, he faltered and paused. 
His utterance was choked, his eyes were filled with 
tears, and he sank into his seat, wholly unable to pro- 
ceed — amid the sympathy, the enthusiasm, and the 
overwhelming applause of the whole concourse. It 
is difficult to describe a scene like this, more eloquent 
than words, and ineffaceable from the memory of all 
who were present. It was the index of an honest 
and true fame, more precious than the richest patri- 
mony to his surviving relatives. 

It was among the most fortunate events of Mr. 
Webster's life that he had such a teacher in the 
outset. 

Yours truly. 



MR. WEBSTER TEACHES A SELECT SCHOOL A FROLIC REV. SAMUEL 

WOOD ^PREPARES FOR COLLEGE ENTERS DARTMOUTH. 

Elms Farm, N. IL, Sept. — 18d9. 
After the return of Mr. Webster from Exeter 
Academy in February, 1797, he was anxious to avail 
himself of the advantages his education gave him. 
He was rather young to teach a school, but he felt 
himself qualified for the task, and he sought an op- 
portunity. William AVirt, Silas Wright, and an 
army of the first men in this country, and espe- 



212 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

cially in this State, have pursued a similar course in 
their career. Three-fourths of all the students in 
New Hampshire teach school occasionally, either 
more or less. Among his associates, and persons of 
his own age, a class was formed for his teaching, 
which occupied an apartment in the house of his 
uncle, William Webster, on the North Road. It 
was for only a short time in the latter part of the 
winter. The class was composed of boys and girls. 
He gave them lessons to the utmost of their ability 
to learn, and he continued his own studies at the 
same time. But it was not " all work and no play." 
The teacher and the pupils had many a frolic toge- 
ther. I will relate one as a specimen. I give it to 
you as it was told to me to-day by one who was one 
of the party. 

The whole class and the teacher were invited to 
the farm of Captain Sawyer, on which Mr. Webster 
was born, to eat apples and drink cider. That farm 
was famous for good apples and other fruit. 

Entertainments of this kind were frequent among 
the farmers in Salisbury at that period, if not at this 
day. I dare say '' apple peelings " are not yet dis- 
continued. 

They assembled in the school-room in the even- 
ing, a bright moonlight night, with fine sleighing ; 
but there were no horses or sleighs as there are now, 
for carrying large parties. They had to resort to 
another expedient. 

Daniel's uncle, William, had a fine yoke of four- 
year-old steers, well fed, and very fast walkers. He 
had also a large sled, with an ample box for a dozen 



REV. SAMUEL WOOD. 21.3 

such passengers. This team was yoked to the sled, 
the box filled with straw, and all the party, bent on 
enjoying themselves, went " aboard," and a glorious 
frolic they had of it. Mr. Webster, though the school- 
master, was younger than many of the pupils. Their 
relative positions were temporarily suspended, and he 
held back nothing that he could do or say to enrich 
the hilarity of the occasion. The events of that joy- 
ful evening will never be forgotten by anybody who 
then lived here. 

But Mr. Webster about this time made the ac- 
quaintance, and secured the lasting and ardent friend- 
ship of Rev. Samuel Wood, LL. D., of Boscawen (a 
place not far off), who was, for more than half a cen- 
tury, minister of the Grospel in that town, and justly 
distinguished for his learning and piety. I will tell 
you something about him. He graduated at Dart- 
mouth College, and at the commencement, in 1779, 
he delivered the valedictory oration. Speaking of 
the interruption to the progress of education which 
the Revolution had occasioned, he spoke his sentiments 
on the subject of education : 

'• How sad," said he, " are the consequences when 
a people unite to neglect the propagation of education, 
not to mention the many instances of the kind re- 
corded in history ; our eyes have seen, our ears have 
heard, and our fathers have told us, how education 
exalted the land of their nativity ! But, alas ! those 
halcyon days are over and gone ; and we feel the dire 
eflfects. Else what meaneth this din of war in our 
land, with garments rolled in blood, — this train of 
Britain's artillery put in array against us 1 Those 



214 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



lightnings that flash from her brazen batteries, and 
the thunders that break from those smoky columns 
with storms pregnant with leaden hailj promiscuous 
instruments of death." 

He was more than a clergyman sometimes is ; he 
was a benefactor, a patron of learning, and a dispenser 
of the blessings of education. I cannot speak too 
highly of him. His whole time and all the means at 
his disposal were devoted to the happiness and pros- 
perity of the youth within his reach. He believed 
in and acted on the principle, that the greatest good 
man can do his fellow-man is to make him happy. 
He believed happiness attended learning. His soul 
knew no bounds. 

His arms were open to every young man who was 
striving for an education. Every one, when known, 
was invited to share his hospitality and to receive 
his instruction. It made no difference to that good 
man whether he did or did not receive remuneration. 
It is said that great numbers of young men have re- 
ceived his tuition, many of whom have lived in his 
house gratuitously. He has personally instructed 
155 pupils in his own house. Of this number, 105 
entered college, from 40 to 50 entered the ministry, 
20 the profession of the law. and 6 or 7 that of me- 
dicine. His pupils were his only pride ; he beheld 
among them Governors, and Councillors of State, 
Judges, and Members of Congress. But few towns, 
in proportion to the number of inhabitants, have edu- 
cated more young men than this ; some of whom take 
their rank among the first advocates, not only in this 
State, but in the United States. Their names are 



KEY. SAMUEL WOOD. 215 

as follows: Moses Eastman, 1794; Moses Sawyer, 
1799; Daniel Webster, 1801; Ezekiel Webster, 
Ebenczer 0. Fifield, 1803; Thomas H. Pettingill, 
1804; Nathaniel Sawyer, 1805; John True, 1806; 
Ichabod Bartlett, Valentine Little, 1808 ; James 
Bartlett, Benjamin Pettingill, 1812; Joseph Ward- 
well, 1813; Charles B. Hadduck, 1816; Benjamin 
Huntoon, 1817; William T. Hadduck, 1819; Joseph 
B. Eastman, 1821. They all graduated at Dartmouth 
College, with one exception. The Salisbury Social 
Library consists of between three and four hundred 
volumes, and annual additions are made to it. 

He saw the mighty talents that gleamed in young 
Mr. Webster, and at once resolved in his own mind 
that such extraordinary gifts must not, should not, 
remain in obscurity. At the time Mr. Webster 
made his acquaintance, Mr. Wood was one of the 
trustees of Dartmouth College, and was on intimate 
terms with the faculty ; he therefore exerted himself 
to get him into that institution. He was often at his 
house and at his table ; he talked with that great 
Dr. of Divinity, and in his presence, with his students 
who were preparing for college. 

No young man was ever more modest or unpre- 
tending than Mr. Webster ; he had not then dreamed 
of so great an enterprise, so great an advantage, as 
going through that or any other university. In his 
mind, the thing was as much beyond his reach as the 
sky over his head. He had no vaulting ambition, 
nor discontentment with his position, but he loved 
learning and the society of learned men. Whatever 
came before him he eagerly devoured. No topic of 



216 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



interest could be suggested wliicli he was willing to 
relinquish till he knew all about it — its length, breadth, 
weight and depth. This was the natural bent of his 
mind. Mr. Webster and his father had conversed 
on the subject, and Ezekiel had been taking a part 
in the conversation, but, on the whole, the two young 
men thought it too much to be undertaken by them. 

Accustomed as Dr. Wood was to measure the 
capacity of young men, and to estimate their relative 
strength, he did not fail to see, what his countrymen 
and the whole world wherever civilization had gone, 
has since seen and is daily seeing, viz., the superiority 
of his intellect. 

This reverend gentleman, and Mr. Abbott of the 
Exeter Academy, were intimate friends. Both had 
discovered the promising talents of young Mr. Web- 
ster, and both were anxious that he should proceed 
in his career, which they foresaw led to eminence. 
With the testimony borne by Mr. Abbott, Mr. Wood 
went to Col. Webster, told him their opinions, and 
recommended him to send Mr. Webster to college. 
His father took the matter into consideration, and 
finally resolved to do what was recommended by such 
high authority. Mr. Wood proposed to attend to his 
preparatory studies. 

In a narrow and quite secluded road which leads 
from this valley near the mouth of Stirrup Iron 
Brook, towards the residence of Mr. Wood, as Mr. 
Webster was driving with his father in a small sleigh 
called a " pung," he was told for the first time he 
was to be sent to college. The announcement startled 
him, but he eagerly assented. In a moment the 



PREPARES FOR COLLEGE. 21*7 

miglity mountain he had to climb rose before his 
imagination, but " he screwed up his courage to the 
sticking place," and boldly commenced the ascent, 
and never turned back till he had reached, as you 
have seen, the pinnacle of fame. I drove over the 
place to-day, with one familiar with the circumstances 
I have related, and I could not but feel that a deep 
interest attached itself to the spot where his destiny 
and where the current of his thoughts were so com- 
pletely changed by so important an announcement. 

I have heard Mr. Webster relate the story, and 
describe the various sensations he felt. At one 
moment he laid his head on his father's bosom and 
wept. At another moment he felt as much pride and 
exultation as ever was felt by a Roman Consul to 
whom a triumph had been decreed. 

He commenced his preparation for College. It 
must be borne in mind he had been only nine months 
at the Academy. As late as the month of June he 
had never opened a Greek Grammar for studying, and 
yet he was to enter Dartmouth in August ! A short 
time, indeed. Mr. Wood had a class of young men then 
fitting themselves for the same purpose. They were 
reviewing Cicero's Orations. Mr. Webster had never 
read one of them. He entered the same class, and 
opening the book at the pages they were reviewing, 
he read them fluently and understandingly, as it were 
by intuition. Their language seemed to be his own 
language. He could think in the same strain ; and 
he has been heard to say that no task was ever so 
easily accomplished as his reading Cicero. But not 
so with Greek. He did not like the language, and 



218 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

would never take the trouble to understand it any 
farther than was absolutely required by his Professor. 
It was not because he could not learn that or any 
other language with facility, but he did not fancy it, 
and never tried to make himself a good Greek scholar. 
The English and Latin he thought sufficient for his 
purposes. Had he intended to be a G-reek Professor, 
he would have thought othei-wise and done otherwise. 
Mr. Webster has often related the following anec- 
dote, which is well told by Professor Sanborn, whose 
words I substitute for my own. His recreations then 
were the same which have occupied his leisure hours 
in later life. In his rambles among the neighboring 
woods, his rifle was his constant companion : 

" linoque solebat et hamo 

Decipere, et calamo salientes ducere pisees." 

" His kind mentor once ventured to suggest his 
fears lest young Daniel's example, in devoting so 
much time to his favorite amusements, might prove 
injurious to the other boys. He did not complain 
that his task was neglected, or that any lesson was 
imperfectly prepared. This suggestion was sufficient. 
The sensitive boy could not bear the suspicion of any 
dereliction of duty. The next night was devoted to 
study. No sleep visited his eyes. His teacher ap- 
peared in the morning to hear his recitation. He 
could read his hundred lines without mistake. He 
was nowhere found tripping in syntax or prosody. As 
his teacher was preparing to leave, young Daniel 
requested him to hear a few more lines. Another 
hundred was read. Breakfast was repeatedly an- 



PREPARES FOR COLLEGE. 219 

nounced. The good doctor was impatient to go, and 
asked his pupil how much further he could read. ' To 
the end of the twelfth book of the ^neid,' was the 
prompt reply. The doctor never had occasion to 
reprove him again. His study hours ever after were 
sacred. In less than a year, he read, with his teach- 
er, Virgil and Cicero ; and, in private, two large works 
of Grotius and Puffendorf, written in Latin," 

In the month of August, 1797, Mr. Wood pro- 
posed that Mr. Webster should enter college with 
the class that had been long preparing and had read 
all the books necessary to enable its members to en- 
ter with decided advantages. That good man went 
to the Faculty, personally, to recommend him, " not 
so much for what he had learned as for what he told 
them he could learn if he had an opportunity." He 
was then only fifteen years old, and his advantages, 
as you have seen, had not been great. But relying 
on the influence of Mr. Wood with the Faculty, as 
well as upon his ability to perform what he should 
promise, he made his arrangements to go, unprepared 
as he was, from the want of time and the absence of 
the requisite books. 

A near neighbor, who was engaged in the domes- 
tic manufacture of clothes, with great dispatch fitted 
him out with a new suit of blue clothing — coat, vest 
and pantaloons — for the occasion of his first visit at 
Hanover and his examination. 

When thus prepared, he set out on horseback. 
On his way he encountered a violent storm, which 
lasted two days, raised a flood, carried away bridges, 
delayed his arrival, made it necessary in one in- 



220 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

stance for him to travel twenty miles farther than the 
usual distance, and near the end of his journey 
drenched him with rain. 

When Mr. Webster arrived, the Faculty for his 
examination was in session, and his presence was re- 
quired immediately. On going to his room he found 
that the soaking rain had started the color of his new 
suit, and that from head to foot, under clothing, skin 
and all, he was as blue as an indigo-bag. No time 
was to be lost. He improved his plight all he could, 
yet, blue as he was, he presented himself before his 
examiners, that they might determine his qualifica- 
tions to enter their institution. 

Professor ShurtliJBf, now one of the Faculty, en- 
tered that College at the same time, and has often 
told the story of his first meeting Mr. Webster. He 
says : 

"When I came to enter this Institution in 1797, 
I put up, with others from the same Academy, at 
what is now called the Olcott House^ which was then 
a tavern. AVe were conducted to a chamber, where 
we might brush our clothes and make ready for ex- 
amination. A young man, a stranger to us all, was 
soon ushered into the room. Similarity of object 
rendered the ordinary forms of introduction needless. 
We learned that his name was Webster, also where 
he had studied, and how much Latin and Greek he 
had read, which I think was just to the limit pre- 
scribed by law at that period, and which was very 
much below the present requisition." 

When Mr. Webster appeared before the Faculty, 
he, in good-humor has said of himself, he " was not 



ENTERS DARTMOUTH. 2.21 



only black Dan but blue Dan." However, with self- 
possession and great tact, he narrated what time he 
had occupied, what books he had read, and what op- 
portunities he had improved for study, and especially 
the mishaps that had befallen him on the way there. 
" Thus you see me," said he, " as I am, if not entitled 
to your approbation, at least to your sympathy." He 
answered the questions addressed to him without em- 
barrassment and to his best ability. With the aid of 
the Rev. Mr. Wood's influence, he passed what he 
looked to as a fiery ordeal, and entered on his career 
at College as a member of the Freshmen class. A 
fortunate day for Dartmouth College. 

Hon. John Wheelock, LL. D., was then the Presi- 
dent. Hon. Bezaleel Woodward and Rev. John Smith, 
D. D., were among the eminent Professors. Mr. Web- 
ster was there, as I have shown you, more through 
die influence of Dr. Wood than because he was thor- 
oughly prepared. He had not read the books which 
were set down among the requisites for admission. 
From the month of March to the month of August, 
under the direction of Mr. Wood, he had looked into 
some of them — as many as he could in so short a 
time — but others he had not even opened. 

He was not, therefore, prepared to compete with, 
much less to excel, the older and more thoroughly 
prepared members of his class. Had he occupied a 
year more in his preparatory studies, he would have 
stood on a par with any of them in all the branches 
of learning to which their attention was at any time 
called. As it was, he stood at the foot of his class 
in the beginning, and was compelled to delve into new 



222 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

books, the outsides of wliicli be bad never before 
seen, to keep pace with bis fellows, wbile some of bis 
classmates were only leisurely reviewing wbat tbey 
bad before read. This was a disadvantage wbicb be 
always felt, and often spoke of in bis after life. 

Professor Sanborn asks tbe following question: 
Wbat one of those College idlers, who talk so flip- 
pantly about tbe idleness of Daniel Webster, when a 
student, bad prepared himself for a like station in 
two short months 1 The students of that day were 
deprived of many of the comforts and luxuries of life 
which are now so liberally enjoyed. This learned 
Professor also says Mr. Webster at once took the 
position in it which he has since held in tbe intellec- 
tual world. By tbe unanimous consent, both of 
teachers and classmates, he stood at tbe head of bis 
associates in study ; and was as far above them then, 
in all that constitutes human greatness, as he is now. 

At that time, tbe studies of tbe Freshmen's class, 
tbe first year, were the Greek and Latin languages, 
tbe rules for speaking and composition, and tbe ele- 
ments of mathematics. Since that day, tbe number 
and character of tbe text or class books required to 
be studied, I am told, have gradually increased with 
the progress of public improvement. In the study 
of tbe Latin language, and in tbe rules of speaking 
and composition, he was perfectly at home. His 
Virgil and Cicero were, to him, charmed volumes. 
He read them more for the pleasure they afforded, 
than as a task imposed on a school-boy. They con- 
stituted a theme for bis eloquence when speaking to 
his College fellows, on every proper occasion. 



ENTERS DARTMOUTH. 223 

The language in which those great men wrote, was 
to him a brilliant transparency, through which he 
could see their thoughts as others see physical objects; 
and his young but searching mind revelled among 
those thoughts as with congenial spirits. The Latin 
Dictionary and Grammar were in his memory, and 
the rapidity with which he soon read all the Latin 
authors, terse and good, marked him as a prodigy. 
So it was with the rules of speaking and composition. 
His translations of the Latin authors as he read 
them, and his essays in writing, submitted for exam- 
ination, enabled him to reduce to practice what those 
rules taught him in theory. There was a charm 
about speaking and writing which had enchanted him 
during the short time he was at Exeter. Although, 
at that time, he was too modest or too timid to stand 
out before the spectators, and deliver a speech, as I 
told you in a former letter, yet he felt, and he fre- 
quently says, that if he had a desire, with respect to 
the future, at that early stage of his career, it was to 
write as Virgil and Tacitus wrote, to speak as Cicero 
spoke- This he knew he could not do, unless he 
could think like them. In the very outset, having 
made himself master of the rules of speaking and 
composition, as far as the best authors could instruct 
him ; having acquired, also, the graces of oratory ; 
and, being by nature self-possessed, he never mounted 
the rostrum without commanding attention. There 
was a dignity in his manner, a grace in his delivery, 
with courteous deference to all present, that never 
failed, even then, to raise admirers. That large fore- 
head, and those dark, penetrating eyes you have so 



224 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



often seen, were as visible then as now. No judge of 
men could look at him, and not say God made him 
extraordinary. Every student in that College ac- 
knowledged and deferred to his great talents. The 
whole Faculty, too, sanctioned by their words, their 
actions, and the respect they paid him, the opinion 
which the students entertained. 

Professor Shurtliff, one of his classmates, also 
speaks of him as follows : 

" Mr. Webster, while in College, was remarkable 
for his steady habits, his intense application to study, 
and his punctual attendance upon all the prescribed 
exercises. I know not that he was absent from a re- 
citation, or from morning and evening prayers in the 
Chapel, or from public worship on the Sabbath ; and 
I doubt if ever a smile was seen upon his face dur- 
ing any religious exercise. He was always in his 
place, and with a decorum suited to it. He had no 
collision with any one, nor appeared to enter into the 
concerns of others, but emphatically minded his own 
busi7iess. 

" But as steady as the sun, he pursued with in- 
tense application the great object for which he came 
to College. This I conceive was the secret of his 
popularity in College, and his success in subsequent 
life." 

The venerable Judge Woodward, the Professor 
of Natural Philosophy, (who died shortly after Mr. 
Webster left College.) often spoke of him in high 
terms. Said he, — " That "man^s victory is certain 
who readies the heart through the "medium of the 
understanding. He (Mr. Webster) gained me by 



ENTERS DARTMOUTH. 225 



combating ony opinions^ for 1 often attacked him 
tnerely to try his strength.''^ 

That learned and aged Professor, when he first 
made Mr. Webster's acquaintance, predicted his fu- 
ture eminence, and took infinite pleasure in assisting 
to lay the foundation stones of what he felt was to 
be a magnificent building. These circumstances, and 
these flattering indications, induced him to direct his 
steps early to the fields of oratory. From his con- 
versations with well informed men, he obtained a 
knowledge of the manner of such men as Fisher 
Ames, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Patrick Henry, 
Alexander Hamilton, and other great men, who at 
that day were distinguished as orators. From jour- 
nals and other sources, he acquired a knowledge of 
the style of Pitt, Burke, and others, eminent on the 
other side of the Atlantic. The first step towards 
emulating them, he conceived was, to ascertain who 
were truly eminent, and then, how they became so. 
As early as possible, he acquired this information ; 
and then it was that he discovered that theory con- 
cerning eloquence, which he so graphically described 
years afterwards, in his eulogy on Adams and Jef- 
ferson. Hear him ! You will never tire. 

" True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in 
speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and 
learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. 
Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, 
but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the 
man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Afi"ected 
passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, 
all may aspire after it, they cannot reach it. It 
10* 



226 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a 
fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of vol- 
canic fires with spontaneous, original, native force. 
The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments 
and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust 
men when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, 
their children, and their country, hang on the deci- 
sion of the hour ; then words have lost their power, 
and rhetoric is vain, and all the elaborate oratory 
contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked 
and subdued, — as in the presence of higher qualities. 
Then patriotism is eloquent : then self-devotion is 
eloquent. The clear conception outrunning the de- 
ductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, 
the dauntless spirit speaking on the tongue, beaming 
from the eye, informing every feature, and urging 
the whole man onward — right onward to his object — 
this, this is eloquence ; or rather, it is something 
greater and higher than all eloquence ; it is action, 
noble, sublime, godlike action." 

Acting on this theory, Mr. Webster conceived it 
was not enough for him to have a good voice, a fluent 
speech, accompanied with graceful gestures and a 
commanding person, to be eloquent, but he must, in 
reality, be the man ; he must have the thought ; he 
must be qualified by mental endowments and acquire- 
ments for all the occasions which might call forth 
eloquence, and then, and then only, could he be an 
eloquent man. Without these, he would be like a 
shining casket without its jewels. 

It was one of the peculiar features of this college 
that after exacting the ordinary recitations or lessons 



IN COLLEGE. 227 



the minds of the students were allowed to follow the 
bent of their own inclinations. There was no uni- 
formity of coats, caps, or thoughts ; consequently each 
one could distinguish himself if he had the power, in 
other ways than by being prompt at prayers, prompt 
at recitations, and prompt in obeying all the little 
exactions which in other schools are too often the 
only merits recognised by the faculty, and the only 
basis on which claims to collegiate honors stand. 
Although Mr. Webster was careful to observe all 
the requirements, and was remarkable ior his punctu- 
ality in every duty or engagement, yet he did not 
consider these qualifications as all that was desirable. 

Mr. Webster was distinguished (says my inform- 
ant) the first year for his great knowledge beyond 
the range of his daily lessons, and much more for 
his bold and independent manner of thinking and ex- 
pressing his opinions on all subjects which came 
within the range of his reading or observation. 

But, in the study of the Greek languages and 
mathematics, he did no more than was allotted him to 
do to keep along with his class. The bent of his 
mind was not in that direction. 

During his second year at college he continued to 
study the Latin and Greek languages, reading new 
books, and also proceeded to the study of geography, 
logic, and the higher branches of mathematics, as 
prescribed by the rules of the College. Geography, 
ancient and modern, delighted him ; and during that 
year he made great proficiency in this branch of his 
education. Logic was a study particularly suited to 
his taste and mind. 



228 MEMORIALS OF DAMIEL WEBSTER. 

Professor Sanborn also relates the following anec- 
dote : — After a residence of two years at college, 
he spent a vacation at home. He had tasted the 
sweets of literature, and enjoyed the victories of in- 
tellectual effort. He loved the scholar's life. He felt 
keenly for the condition of his brother Ezekiel, who 
was destined to remain on the farm, and labor to lift 
the mortgage from the old homestead, and furnish the 
means of his brother's support. Ezekiel was a farmer 
in spirit and in practice. He led his laborers in the 
field, as he afterwards led his class in Greek. Daniel 
knew and appreciated his superior intellectual endow- 
ments. He resolved that his brother should enjoy 
the same privileges with himself. That night the two 
brothers retired to bed, but not to sleep. They dis- 
coursed of their prospects. Daniel utterly refused to 
enjoy the fruit of his brother's labor any longer. 
They were united in sympathy and affection, and they 
must be united in their pursuits. But how could 
they leave their beloved parents, in age and solitude, 
with no protector 1 They talked and wept, and wept 
and talked till dawn of day. They dared not broach 
the matter to their father. Finally, Daniel resolved 
to be the orator upon the occasion. Judge Webster 
was then somewhat burdened with debts. He was 
advanced in age, and had set his heart upon having 
Ezekiel as his helper. The very thought of separa- 
tion from both his sons was painful to him. When 
the proposition was made, he felt as did the Patriarch 
of old, when he exclaimed, " Joseph is not * * *, and 
will ye also take Benjamin away ?" A family council 
was called. The mother's opinion was asked. She 



IN COLLEGE. 229 



was a strong-minded woman. She was not blind tc 
the superior endowments of her sons. With all a 
mother's partiality, however, she did not over-estimate 
their powers. She decided the matter at once. Her 
reply was : " I have lived long in the world, and have 
been happy in my children. If Daniel and Ezekiel 
will promise to take care of me in my old age, I will 
consent to the sale of all our property at once, and 
they may enjoy the benefit of that which remains after 
our debts are paid." This was a moment of intense 
interest to all the parties. Parents and children all 
mingled their tears together, and sobbed aloud, at the 
thought of separation. The father yielded to the 
entreaties of the sons and the advice of his wife. 
Daniel returned to college, and Ezekiel took his little 
bundle in his hand, and sought on foot the scene of 
his preparatory studies. In one year he joined his 
younger brother in college. 

In the third year, besides the languages, Daniel 
read Natural and Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric. 
Besides the lessons daily learned by his class and 
himself, he read with intense satisfaction, "Watts 
on the Mind," and " Locke on the Understanding ;" 
he committed them to memory. When he came to 
these great lights, he began to see more clearly than 
ever the nature of the mind, and proceeded to the 
vigorous discipline of his own powers of analysis ; so 
that, ere the Faculty were aware of it, they had a 
Logician in their presence, whose skill in argument 
and deep penetration baffled all their learning and 
experience. 

Mr. Webster was now in his seventeenth year. 



230 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

His manly character, bis dignified deportment, and 
his acknowledged abilities had become well known. 
The patriotic citizens of Hanover, old and young, in 
College, and out of it, united in an invitation to him, 
to deliver an oration on the 4th of July. This he 
accepted, although the time for preparation was short. 
The ringing of bells, and the thundering cannon 
ushered in the day. The ceremonies were conducted 
with great pomp and solemnity. The concourse of 
people was large. Anthems were sung. The glorious 
declaration itself was read ; and then, he came for- 
ward, and with all the graces of oratory, delivered 
the oration for the occasion. I have taken great 
pains to get a copy of it. One of his classmates has 
preserved it in a pamphlet, on the title-page of which 
I find the following : 

AN ORATION 

Pronounced at Hanover, New Hampsliire, the 4th of July, 

1800, being the Twenty-Fourth Anniversary of 

American Independence. 

BY DANIEL WEBSTER, 
Member of the Junior Class, Dart. University. 



' Do thou, ^eat Liberty, inspire our souls, 
And make our lives in thy possession happy. 
Or our deaths glorious in "thy just defence." — Additon, 



Published by request of the Subscribers. 



Printed at Hanover, 

BY MOSES DAVIS. 
ISOO. 



ORATION. 

Countrymen^ Brethren^ and Fathers : We are 
now assembled to celebrate an anniversary, ever to be 



FOURTH OF JULY OliATION. 231 

held ill dear remembrance by the sons of freedom. 
Nothing less than the birth of a nation — nothing less 
than the emancipation of three millions of people 
from the degrading chains of foreign dominion, is the 
event we commemorate. 

Twenty four years have this da}" elapsed since 
these United States first raised the standard of Lib- 
erty, and echoed the shouts of Independence ! 

Those of you, who were then reaping the iron har- 
vest of the martial field, whose bosoms then palpi- 
tated for the honor of America, will, at this time, 
experience a renewal of all that fervent patriotism ; 
of all those indescribable emotions which then agi- 
tated your breasts. As for us, who were either then 
unborn, or not far enough advanced beyond the 
threshold of existence, to engage in the grand conflict 
for Liberty, we now most cordially unite with you, to 
greet the return of this joyous anniversary, to wel- 
come the return of the day that gave us Freedom, 
and to hail the rising glories of our country ! 

On occasions like this, you have hitherto been ad- 
dressed, from the stage, on the nature, the origin, the 
expediency of civil government. 

The field of political speculation has here been 
explored by persons possessing talents to which the 
speaker of the day can have no pretensions. De- 
clining, therefore, a dissertation on the principles of 
civil polity, you will indulge me in slightly sketching 
those events which have originated, nurtured and 
raised to its present grandeur this new empire. 

As no nation on the globe can rival us in the ra- 
pidity of our growth since the conclusion of the Revo- 



232 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

lutionarj War, so none, perhaps, ever endured greater 
hardships and distresses than the people of this coun- 
try previous to that period. 

We behold a feeble band of colonists engaged in 
the arduous undertaking of a new settlement in the 
wilds of North America. Their civil liberty being 
mutilated, and the enjoyment of their religious senti- 
ments denied them in the land that gave them birth, 
they fled their country, they braved the dangers of 
the then almost unnavigated ocean, and sought, on 
the other side of the globe, an asylum from the iron 
grasp of tyranny and the more intolerable scourge of 
ecclesiastical persecution. 

But gloomy, indeed, was the prospect when ar- 
rived on this side the Atlantic. 

Scattered in detachments along a coast immensely 
extensive, at a distance of more than three thousand 
miles from their friends on the eastern continent, 
they were exposed to all those evils, and encountered 
or experienced all those difficulties to which human 
nature seemed liable. Destitute of convenient habi- 
tations, the inclemencies of the seasons harassed them, 
the midnight beasts of prey prowled terribly around 
them, and the more portentous yell of savage fury in- 
cessantly assailed them. But the same undiminished 
confidence in Almighty God which prompted the first 
settlers of this country to forsake the unfriendly 
climes of Europe, still sujDported them under all their 
calamities, and inspired them with fortitude almost 
divine. Having a glorious issue to their labors now 
in prospect, they cheerfully endured the rigors of the 
climate, pursued the savage beast to his remotest 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 233 

haunt, and stood, undismayed, in the dismal hour of 
Indian battle. 

Scarcely were the infant settlements freed from 
those dangers which at first environed them, ere the 
clashing interests of France and Britain involved 
them anew in war. The Colonists were now destined 
to combat with well appointed, well disciplined troops 
from Europe ; and the horrors of the tomahawk and 
the scalping-knife were again renewed. But these 
frowns of fortune, distressing as they were, had been 
met without a sigh, and endured without a groan, had 
not Great Britain presumptuously arrogated to her- 
self the glory of victories achieved by the bravery of 
American militia. Louisburg must be taken, Canada 
attacked, and a frontier of more than one thousand 
miles defended by untutored yeomanry, while the 
honor of every conquest must be ascribed to an Eng- 
lish army. 

But while Great Britain was thus tyrannically 
stripping her Colonies of their well earned laurels, 
and triumphantly weaving them into the stupendous 
wreath of her own martial glories, she was unwitting- 
ly teaching them to value themselves, and effectually 
to resist, on a future day, her unjust encroachments. 

The pitiful tale of taxation now commences, — the 
unhappy quarrel, which resulted in the dismember- 
ment of the British Empire, has here its origin. 

England, now triumphant over the united powers 
of France and Spain, is determined to reduce to the 
condition of slaves, her American subjects. 

We might now display the Legislatures of the sev- 
eral States, together with the General Congress, peti- 



234 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



tioning, praying, remonstrating ; and, like dutiful sub- 
jects, humbly laying their grievances before the throne. 
On the other hand, we could exhibit a British Par- 
liament, assiduously devising means to subjugate 
America, disdaining our petitions : trampling on our 
rights ; and menacingly telling us, in language not to 
be misunderstood, " Ye shall be Slaves /" We could 
mention the haughty, tyrannical, perfidious Gage, at 
the head of a standing army ; we could show our 
brethren, attacked and slaughtered at Lexington ! 
our property plundered and destroyed at Concord ! 
Recollections can still pain us, with the spiral flames 
of burning Charlestown, the agonizing groans of aged- 
parents, the shrieks of widows, orphans, and infants ! 

Indelibly impressed on our memories, still live 
the dismal scenes of Bunker's awful mount, the grand 
theatre of New England bravery ; where slaughter 
stalked, grimly triumphant ; where relentless Britain 
saw her soldiers, the unhappy instruments of despo- 
tism, fallen in heaps, beneath the nervous arm of in- 
jured freemen ! 

There the great Warren fought, and there, alas ! 
he fell ! Valuing life only as it enabled him to serve 
his country, he freely resigned himself, a willing mar- 
tyr in the cause of Liberty, and now lies encircled in 
the arms of glory. 

" Peace to the Patriot's shade— let no rude blast 
Disturb the willow that nods o'er his tomb ; 
Let orphan tears bedew his sacred urn, 
And fame's loud trump proclaim the hero's name, 
Far as the circuit of the spheres extends." 

But, haughty Albion, thy reign shall soon be over. 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 235 

Thou shalt triumph no longer ; thine empire already 
reels and totters ; thy laurels even now begin to 
wither, and thy frame decay. Thou hast, at length, 
roused the indignation of an insulted people ; thine 
oppressions they deem no longer tolerable. 

The 4th day of July, 1776, has now arrived, and 
America, manfully springing from the torturing fangs 
of the British Lion, now rises majestic in the pride 
of her sovereignty, and bids her Eagle elevate his 
wings ! 

The solemn Declaration of Independence is now 
pronounced, amidst crowds of admiring citizens, by 
the supreme council of our nation ; and received 
with the unbounded plaudits of a grateful people ! 

That was the hour when heroism was proved — 
when the souls of men were tried. 

It was then, ye venerable patriots (speaking to 
the Revolutionary soldiers present), it was then you 
lifted the indignant arm, and unitedly swore to be 
free ! Despising such toys as subjugated empires, 
you then knew no middle fortune between liberty 
and death. 

Firmly relying on the protection of Heaven, un- 
warped in the resolution you had taken, you then, 
undaunted, met — engaged — defeated the gigantic 
power of Britain, and rose triumphant over the 
aggressions of your enemies. 

Trenton, Princeton, Bennington, and Saratoga 
were the successive theatres of your victories, and 
the utmost bounds of creation are the limits of your 
fame ! The sacred fire of freedom, then enkindled 
in your breasts, shall be perpetuated through the 



236 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

long descent of future ages, and burn, with undimin- 
islied fervor, in the bosoms of millions yet unborn. 

Finally, to close the sanguinary conflict, to grant 
America the blessings of an honorable peace, and 
clothe her heroes with laurels, Cornwallis, at whose 
feet the kings and princes of Asia have since throion 
their diadems, was compelled to submit to the sword 
of Washington. 

The great drama is now completed : our Inde- 
pendence is now acknowledged ; and the hopes of our 
enemies are blasted for ever ; Columbia is now seated 
in the forum of Nations, and the Empires of the 
world are amazed at the bright effulgence of her 
glory. 

Thus, friends and citizens, did the kind hand of 
overruling Providence conduct us, through toils, 
fatigues and dangers, to Independence and Peace. 
If piety be the rational exercise of the human soul, 
if religion be not a chimera, and if the vestiges of 
heavenly assistance are clearly traced in those events 
which mark the annals of our Nation, it becomes us, 
on this day, in consideration of the great things 
which have been done for us, to render the tribute of 
unfeigned thanks to that God, who superintends 
the universe, and holds aloft the scale, that weighs 
the destinies of Nations. 

The conclusion of the Revolutionary War did not 
accomplish the entire achievements of our country- 
men. Their military character was then, indeed, 
sufficiently established ; but the time was coming 
which should prove their political sagacity — their 
ability to govern themselves. 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 237 



No sooner was peace restored with England (the 
first grand article of which was the acknowledgment 
of our Independence), than the old system of Confed- 
eration, dictated, at first, by necessity, and adopted 
for the purposes of the moment, was found inadequate 
to the government of an extensive Empire. Under 
a full conviction of this, we then saw the people of 
these States engaged in a transaction which is un- 
doubtedly the greatest approximation towards human 
perfection the political world ever yet witnessed, and 
which, perhaps, will for ever stand in the history of 
mankind without a parallel. A great Republic, com- 
posed of different States, whose interest in all respects 
could not be perfectly compatible, then came deliber- 
ately forward, discarded one system of government 
and adopted another, without the loss of one man's 
blood. 

There is not a single Government now existing 
in Europe, which is not based in usurpation, and 
established, if established at all, by the sacrifice of 
thousands. But, in the adoption of our present 
system of jurisprudence, we see the powers necessary 
for Government voluntarily flowing from the people, 
their only proper origin, and directed to the public 
good, their only proper object. 

With peculiar propriety, we may now felicitate 
ourselves on that happy form of mixed government 
under which we live. The advantages resulting to 
the citizens of the Union are utterly incalculable, 
and the day when it was received by a majority of 
the States shall stand on the catalogue of American 



238 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



anniversaries second to none but the birthday of 
Independence. 

In consequence of the adoption of our present 
system of Government, and the virtuous manner in 
which it has been administered by a Washington and 
an Adams, we are this day in the enjoyment of peace, 
while war devastates Europe ! We can now sit down 
beneath the shadow of the olive, while her cities 
blaze, her streams run purple with blood, and her 
fields glitter with a forest of bayonets ! The citizens 
of America can this day throng the temples of free- 
dom, and renew their oaths of fealty to independence ; 
while Holland, our once sister Republic, is erased 
from the catalogue of nations ; while Venice is des- 
troyed, Italy ravaged, and Switzerland — the once 
happy, the once united, the once flourishing Switzer- 
land — lies bleeding at every pore ! 

No ambitious foe dares now invade our country. 
No standing army now endangers our liberty. Our 
Commerce, though subject in some degree to the de- 
predations of the belligerent powers, is extended from 
pole to pole ; our Navy, though just emerging from 
non-existence, shall soon vouch for the safety of our 
merchantmen, and bear the thunder of freedom 
around the ball. Fair science, too, holds her gentle 
empire amongst us, and almost innumerable altars 
are raised to her divinity, from Brunswick to Florida. 
Yale, Providence, and Harvard, now grace our land ; 
and Dartmouth, towering majestic above the groves 
which encircle her, now inscribes her glory on the 
registers of fame ! Oxford and Cambridge, those 
oriental stars of literature, shall now be outshone bv 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 



239 



the bright sun of American science, which displays 
his broad circumference in uneclipsed radiance. 

Pleasing, indeed, were it here to dilate on the 
future grandeur of America ; but we forbear, and 
pause for a moment to drop the tear of affection over 
the graves of our departed warriors. Their names 
Bliould be mentioned on every anniversary of Inde- 
pendence, that the youth of each successive generation 
may learn not to value life, when held in competition 
with, their country's safety. 

Wooster, Montgomery, and Mercer, fell bravely in 
battle, and their ashes are now entombed on the 
fields that witnessed their valor. Let their exertions 
in our country's cause be remembered, while liberty 
has an advocate and gratitude has place in the hu- 
man heart. 

Greene, the immortal hero of the Carolinas, has 
since gone down to the grave, loaded with honors, and 
high in the estimation of his countrymen. The 
courageous Putnam has long slept with his fathers ; 
and Sullivan and Cilley, New Hampshire's veteran 
sons, are no more remembered with the living. 

With hearts penetrated by unutterable grief, we 
are at length constrained to ask, where is our Wash- 
ington ? where the hero who led us to victory ? where 
the man who gave us freedom ? where is he, who 
headed our feeble army, when destruction threat- 
ened us, who came upon our enemies like the storms 
of winter, and scattered them like leaves before the 
Borean blast? Where, ! my country ! is thy poli- 
tical saviour ? Where, ! humanity ' thy favorite 
«!on? 



240 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



The solemnity of this assembly, the lamentations 
of the American people will answer, '' Alas ! he is 
now no more — the mighty is fallen !" 

Yes, Americans, Washington is gone ! he is now 
consigned to dust and sleeps in " dull, cold marble !" 

The man who never felt a wound but when it 
pierced his country- — who never groaned but when 
fair freedom bled — is now for ever silent ! 

Wrapped in the shroud of death, the dark do- 
minions of the grave long since received him, and he 
rests in undisturbed repose ! Vain were the attempt 
to express our loss — vain the attempt to describe the 
feelings of our souls ! Though months have rolled 
away since his spirit left this terrestrial orb, and 
sought the shining worlds on high, yet the sad event 
is still remembered with increased sorrow. The hoary- 
headed patriot of '76 still tells the mournful story to 
the listening infant, till the loss of his country 
touches his heart, and patriotism fires his breast. The 
aged matron still laments the loss of the man, be- 
neath whose banners her husband has fought, or 
her son has fallen. At the name of Washington, the 
sympathetic tear still glistens in the eye of every 
youthful hero. Nor does the tender sigh yet cease 
to heave in the fair bosom of Columbia's daughters. 

Farewell, Washington, a long farewell ! 
Thy Country's tears embalm thy aiemory ; -^ 
Thy virtues challenge immortality ; 
Impressed on grateful hearts, thy name shall live, 
Till dissolution's deluge drown the world. 

Although we must feel the keenest sorrow at the 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 241 



demise of our "Washington, yet we console ourselves 
with the reflection that his virtuous compatriot, his 
worthy successor, the firm, the wise, the inflexible 
Adams, still survives. Elevated by the voice of his 
country, to the supreme executive magistracy, he 
constantly adheres to her essential interests, and 
with steady hand draws the disguising veil from the 
intrigues of foreign enemies and the plots of domes- 
tic foes. 

Having the honor of America always in view, 
never fearing, when wisdom dictates, to stem the im- 
petuous torrent of popular resentment, he stands 
amid the fluctuations of party and the explosions of 
faction, unmoved as Atlas, 

" While storms and tempest thunder on its brow, 
And oceans break their billows at its feet." 

Yet all the vigilance of our Executive, and all 
the wisdom of our Congress, have not been sufiicicnt 
to prevent the country from being in some degree agi- 
tated by the convulsions of Europe. But why shall 
every quarrel on the other side of the Atlantic in- 
terest us in its issue ? Why shall the rise or de- 
pression of every party there, produce here a corre- 
sponding vibration ? Was this continent designed as 
a mere satellite to the other ? Has not nature here 
wrought all operations on her broadest scale ? Where 
are the Mississippis and the Amazons, the Alleghanies 
and the Andes of Europe, Asia and Africa? The 
natural superiority of America clearly indicates that 
it was designed to be inhabited by a nobler race of 
men, possessing a superior form of Government, 
11 



242 MEMORIALS U¥ DANIEL WEUSTEK. 

superior patriotism, superior talents, and superior 
virtues. 

Let then the nations of the East vainly waste 
their strength in destroying each other. 

Let them aspire at conquest, and contend for do- 
minion, till their continent is deluged in blood. But 
let none, however elated by victory, however proud of 
triumph, ever presume to intrude on the neutral posi- 
tion assumed by our country. 

Britain, twice humbled for her aggressions, has at 
length been taught to respect us. But France, once 
our ally, has dared to insult us ! She has violated 
her treaty obligations — she has depredated our com- 
merce — she has abused our Government, and riveted 
the chains of bondage on our unhappy fellow-citizens ! 
Not content with ravaging and depopulating the 
fairest countries of Europe ; not yet satiated with 
the contortions of expiring republics, the convulsive 
agonies of subjugated nations, and the groans of her 
own slaughtered citizens — she has spouted her fury 
across the Atlantic ; and the stars and stripes of the 
United States have almost been attacked in our har- 
bors ! When we have demanded reparation, she has 
told us, " Give us your money and we will give you 
peace." Mighty nation ! Magnanimous Republic ! 
Let her fill her cofi'ers from those towns and cities 
which she has plundered, and grant peace, if she can, 
to the shades of those millions whose death she has 
caused. 

But Columbia stoops not to tyrants ; her spirit 
will never cringe to France ; neither a supercilious, 
five-headed Directory, nor the gasconading pilgrim 



FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 243 

of Egypt, will ever dictate terms to sovereign 
America. The thunder of our cannon shall insure 
the performance of our treaties, and fulminate de- 
struction on Frenchmen, till the ocean is crimsoned 
with blood, and gorged with pirates ! 

It becomes us, on whom the defence of our coun- 
try will ere long devolve, this day most seriously to 
reflect on the duties incumbent upon us. 

Our ancestors bravely snatched expiring liberty 
from the grasp of Britain, whose touch is poison ; 
shall we now consign it to France, whose embrace is 
death ? We have seen our fathers, in the days of 
our country's trouble, assume the rough habiliments of 
war, and seek the hostile field. Too full of sorrow to 
speak, we have seen them wave a last farewell to a 
disconsolate, a woe-stung family. We have seen 
them return, worn down with fatigue, and scarred 
with wounds ; or we have seen them, perhaps, no 
more. For us they fought — for us they bled — for us 
they conquered. Shall we, their descendants, now 
basely disgrace our lineage and pusillanimously dis- 
claim the legacy bequeathed to us ? Shall we pro- 
nounce the sad valediction to freedom and immortal 
liberty on the altars our fathers have raised to her ? 
No ! The response of the nation is, " No ! " Let it 
be registered in the archives of Heaven. Ere the re- 
ligion we profess, and the privileges we enjoy are 
sacrificed at the shrine of despots and damagogues — 
let the sons of Europe be vassals ; let her hosts of 
nations be a vast congregation of slaves ; but let us, 
who are this day free, whose hearts are yet unappalled, 
and whose right arms are yet nerved for war, assem- 



244 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 



ble before the hallowed temple of American freedom, 
and swear, to the God of our fathers, to preserve it 
secure, or die at its portals. 

I think you will agree with me in saying that the 
boy who delivered that Oration was, to say the least, 
a clever boy. My informant says his friends were so 
much pleased with it, that they obtained a copy for 
publication. By this time, you may say, it is 
pretty " much out of print," but worthy of being re- 
printed. I dare say, Mr. Webster himself has en- 
tirely forgotten it. It shows his bosom was full of 
patriotism, and that in his youth the seeds of the 
noblest sentiments had taken deep root. 

Yours truly. 



MB. WEBSTER STILL AT COLLEGE — HIS STUDIES TUE FOURTH YEAR 

PERSONAL APPEARAXCE ^IIIS EULOGY OX TUE DEATH OF A CLASS- 
MATE COMMEXCEJIEXT HIS CLASSMATES ^PERFORMANCE HIS 

ORATIOX HE IS MADE A BACHELOR OF ARTS TAKES LEAVE. 

Elm3 Farm, N. II., Sept. — 1849. 

In the fourth and last year of Mr. Webster's col- 
lege life his studies were Metaphysics and Natural 
and Political Law ; his exercises were Compositions 
in English and Latin. These were according to the 
regulations established as the routine for the stu- 
dents. 

In all the branches of education taught at Dart- 
mouth during his sojourn there, unprepared as he was 
at the outset, Mr. Webster made himself a respect- 



HIS STUDIES THE FOURTH YEAR. 



245 



able student ; in point of fact, in all those that bore 
directly on the profession he had resolved to pursue 
he made himself eminent. 

That rare faculty which Mr. Webster possesses 
of putting the knowledge of other men into his own 
crucible, and thence obtaining the pure metal, was 
largely developed and cultivated while at college. 

What his Professors knew he knew. The seed 
which fell from their ripe knowledge and experience 
dropped upon a rich soil, when he was a listener, and 
it lost nothing of its virtue in the process of repro- 
duction. 

* * * Yesterday, I had a pleasant interview 
with a lady, who was, as she says, "just entering her 
teens," and residing in Hanover when Mr. Webster 
was at Dartmouth. She remembers him well, although 
many years have passed. She " can tell exactly how 
he looked." She informs me that Mr. Webster was 
slender, and evidently had a feeble constitution. That 
he was a brunette in complexion ; that his hair was 
as black as jet, and when turned back, there was 
displayed a forehead, the sight of which always ex- 
cited great admiration. His dark eyes shone with 
extraordinary brilliancy, and when engaged in agree- 
able or amusiDg conversation, he wore a smile that 
was bewitching, and showed teeth as white as pearls. 
He was a great favorite in the society at Hanover, 
Avhich, though not gay, was refined and distinguished 
for its hospitality. She said that no young man in 
College was more highly esteemed by all classes, old 
and young, than Daniel Webster. She often heard 
him speak on public occasions; and remembers his 



246 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

" Fourth of July Oration," before the people of 
Hanover, and that it made a great sensation. 

AVhile Mr. Webster was there, one of the students, 
who was also a great favorite, died. Mr. Webster 
was chosen by his classmates to pronounce a eulogy 
on the occasion. The house was crowded to its ut- 
most capacity, and she says : '• The scene was solemn 
and quite affecting, for there was not a dry eye pre- 
sent. " 

His name was Ephraim Simonds, a member of 

the Senior Class of Dartmouth College, who died at 
Hanover, April 17, 1801. 

I have not a copy of the whole funeral oration he 
delivered, but I will quote a passage from the exordium: 
" All of him that was mortal now lies in the charnels 
of yonder cemetery. By the grass that nods over 
the mounds of Sumner, Merrill and Cook, now rests 
a fourth son of Dartmouth, constituting another monu- 
ment of man's mortality. The sun, as it sinks to the 
ocean, plays its departing beams on his tomb, but they 
reanimate him not. The cold sod presses on his 
bosom ; his hands hang down in weakness. The bird 
of the evening shouts a melancholy air on the poplar, 
but her voice is stillness to his ears. While his pen- 
cil was drawing scenes of future felicity, — while his 
soul fluttered on the gay breezes of hope, — an unseen 
hand drew the curtain, and shut him from our view." 
Mr. Webster, at this time, had been so inspired with 
the brilliant and fervent style of President Wheelock, 
that he gave stronger indications of rising to eminence 
in poetry than in law or politics. 

The Lidy with whom T conversed says that long 



ErLOGY ON THE DEATH OP A CLASSMATE. 247 



after Mr. Webster left college, other students, for 
their occasional declamations, spoke parts of that 
eulog}^, and even then the hearers were often affected 
to tears. A schoolmate of Mr. Webster confirmed 
all this. I have heard the eulogy much praised. 
Its composition proved that Mr. Webster had an 
imagination and strength of fancy of the highest 
order. It was full of pathos ; and was considered 
by the students, and the faculty too, as an extraor- 
dinary production, — indeed, the most sijlendid that 
ever was heard within the college walls. Those who 
have read his Eulogy on the death of the ex-Presi- 
dents Adams and Jefferson, will not be surprised to 
learn that he early manifested his wonderful capacity 
in this respect. 

He was never wanting in originality. His imagi- 
nation was of a high order. I have seen it stated 
that he wrote poetry, vigorous, manly poetry, whenever 
he chose. In his early productions there was a gor- 
geousness of youthful fancy, and oftentimes they were 
full of pathos. But the discipline to which he sub- 
jected his mind, incorporated the fire of the muse 
with the masses of law and politics he was forging for 
public use, so that on his first appearance after leav- 
ing college, all were astonished at his close, vigorous 
and mature style. While in college, there was pub- 
lished a paper, edited by the faculty and students, and 
no pen was more diligent or potent than that of Mr. 
Webster. 

This excellent lady, to whom I am much indebted, 
was kind enough to grant me the perusal of several 
old papers and memorandums touching Dartmouth 



248 MEMORIALS OF DAXIEL WEBSTER. 



College, which were preserved by her departed bro- 
ther, a classmate, and from which I learn that Mr. 
Webster graduated during the last week in August. 
1801. This was an important event in his career; 
and the incidents of that period interested me much, 
and I dare say they will you. Hanover, on this oc- 
casion, was full of people ; the friends of the students 
in college, some from a great distance, and the lovers 
of learning from the neighboring counties were there, 
to derive pleasure from the public exercises and so- 
cial festivities which the Annual Commencement of 
Dartmouth College always called forth. 

The venerable and highly distinguished Professor 
Alexander, of Princeton, formerly of Virginia, in 
some notes he made of a journey through New Eng- 
land, where he passed the summer of 1801, says : •' In 
passing from Massachusetts over the mountains of 
New Hampshire, I lodged within a few rods of the 
house of a farmer, the father of Hon. Daniel Webster. 
The old gentleman came over to the tavern in the 
morning, and chatted for half an hour. Among other 
things, he said that he had a son at Dartmouth, who 
was about to take his bachelor's degree. The father 
was large in frame, high-breasted and broad-shoul- 
dered, and, like his son, had heavy eyebrows. He 
was an affable man, of sound sense and considerable 
information, and expressed a wish that I might be 
acquainted with his son, of whom, it was easy to see 
that he was proud." 

Dr. Alexander tells the following anecdote of 
Mr. Wheelock, the president, of whom I have before 
spoken : 



HIS CLASSMATES. 



240 



" Arriving at Hanover, the seat of the college, a 
day or two before the commencement, I put up my 
horse, and secured a room at one of the two public 
houses. On the morning of the commencement I 
presented ray letters to President Wheelock, and was 
received with a profusion of ceremonious inclinations; 
for it was pleasantly said that the president suffered 
no man to have the last bow. This, it was reported, 
was put to the test by a person of some assurance, 
who undertook to compete with him in the contest of 
politeness. He accordingly took his leave, bowed 
himself out of the mansion, and continued to bow as 
long as he was on the premises ; but the president 
followed him to the gate, and remained in possession 
of the field. Dr. Wheelock was a man of learning, 
especially in the department of history. Such were 
the manners of the men at the head of the institution 
where Mr. Webster was educated. 

The young gentlemen who graduated with Mr. 
Webster, and received the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts, were the following. I have often heard persons 
say they should like to know who his classmates were. 
I give their names : 



Alplieus Baker, 
James Henry BingliaDi, 
Lemuel Bliss, 
Daniel Campbell, 
John Dutton, 
"William Farrar, 
Habyah Weld Fuller, 
Charles Gilbert, 
Elisha Hotchkiss, 
Abner Howe, 
Ebenezer Jones, 

11* 



David Jewett, 
Joseph Kimball, 
Sanford Kingsbury, 
Aaron Loveland, 
Simeon Lyman, 
Thoma^ Abbott Merril, 
Josiah Noyes, 
John Nye, 
Daniel Parker, 
Nathaniel Shattuck, 
Elisha Smith, 



250 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

William Coit Smith, Caleb Jewett Tenuey, 

Asahel Stone, Samuel Upliam, 

Matthew Taylor, Jabez B. Whitaker. 

The degree of Bachelor of Arts was conferred at 
the same time on a young clergyman by the name of 
Rev. Thomas Worcester. 

The degree of Bachelor of Medicine was con- 
ferred at the same time on Sylvester Day, John 
March and Augustus Correy. 

The degree of Master of Arts was then conferred 
on Messrs. 

Ezekiel L. Bascom, William Lambert, 

Stephen Bemis, David Long, 

James Davis, Levi Pilsbery, 

Pliiny Dickiiisou, David Starrett, 

Abel Farley, Solon Stevens, 

Ebenezer Flint, Jeremiah Stinson, 

Alvaa Foot, Josiah Webster, 

Horace Hall, James W. Woodward, 

Pliinehas Howe. 

The following gentlemen, on the same occasion, 
received the degree of Master of Arts, out of the 
regular course, viz. : Messrs. 

Kiah Bayley, Joseph Powel, 

Silas Dinsmore, Theophilus Packard, 

Saw.ael Alden, Hiram StoiTS, 

Jabez Munsill, Daniel Gilbert. 

The same degree was conferred on Rev. Sylvester 
Dana and Jonathan Belden, from Yale College ; Ig- 
natius Thomj^son, from Rhode Island College ; also, 
on Rev. Daniel Barber and William Morrison. The 



COMMENCEMENT. 251 



degree of Doctor of Medicine was then conferred on 
Nathan Smith. 

Speaking of the Commencement and of the exer- 
cises at the church on that day, Dr. Alexander says: 
" At the Dartmouth Commencement, Gen. Eaton, of 
eccentric memory, was marshal of the day, and was 
unceasing in busying himself about the order of the 
procession to the church ; giving to each graduate, 
of every college, the place due to his seniority. 
Among the speakers was young Daniel Webster. 
Little dreaming of his future career in law, elo- 
quence, and statesmanship, he pronounced a discourse 
on the recent discoveries in Chemistry, especially 
those of Lavoisier, then newly made public." 

Among the number of young g'entlemen above 
named, are several eminent men. Since that day 
they have made their mark on the time, many have 
departed, but some are living in the full enjoyment of 
their accumulating honors. 

There were at that time, as there are now, seve- 
ral societies composed of the students, and other 
members of the College. The anniversaries of those 
societies, were held on the occasion of the commence- 
ment ; and before each society, some member was 
chosen to make an address, preach a sermon, or de- 
liver an oration. My informant tells me that to be 
selected for either of these duties was a mark of dis- 
tinction higher and more appreciated than any other. 
None but those of acknowledged abilities and great 
attainments were even thought of, as candidates for 
such honors. The Faculty of the College awarded 
honors according to certain rules, which they had pre- 



252 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

viously prescribed, and wliicli were according to the 
usage of other Institutions ; having regard to punc- 
tuality at prayers, and at recitations, and regarding 
the manner in which the student had observed all 
the little orders and regulations made for the govern- 
ment of the College, as well as to the improvement 
each one had made in all the studies pursued from 
the beginning to the end of the course. The exer- 
cises of the students began on Monday and ended on 
Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday were devoted to 
the proceedings of the societies. Mr. Bingham was 
chosen to speak before the " Musical Society," and 
his oration was on the " Harmony of Sounds." 

Mr. Merril was selected by the society of " Social 
Friends," and his oration was on the subject of '• Fire." 

A young clergyman, by the name of Rev. Elijah 
Parish, was chosen to preach a discourse before the 
" Literary Adelphi," and his text was, " He shall be 
called Wonderful." 

The Rev. Eliphalet Gillet, preached a discourse 
before the '• Phi Beta KajJjJnr from these words, 
" Take fast hold of instruction ; let her not go ; keep 
her, for she is thy life." 

A Latin oration on " The Prosperity of America," 
with the salutatory addresses, were delivered by Mr. 
Thomas A. Merril. 

There was a forensic dispute on this subject : " Is 
the earth an oblate spheroid ?" by Mr. Abuer Howe 
and Mr. Daniel Parker. 

A philosophical oration on the " Intellectual Sys- 
tem," was delivered by Mr. Simeon Lyman. 

A dialogue on " Algcrine Piracy," by Mr. David 



COMMENCEMENT ORATION. 253 

Jewett and Mr, Asahel Stone, was among the exer- 
cises. 

A Hebrew oration, or an address on the " Fear of 
the Lord," was delivered by Mr. Nathaniel Shattuck. 
And there was an English oration on '• Education." 
Avith the valedictory addresses, by Mr. Caleb J. Ten- 
ncy, a young gentleman of fine talents, and the most 
punctual and ardent student in College. 

But the most numerous, and, at that time, the 
most important society, was the one known as " The 
United Fraternity." This society unanimously des- 
ignated Mr. Webster to deliver an oration before its 

o 

members, and all classes were, of course, invited. 
The audience was large. The few occasions on which 
he had appeared before the public had already made 
him famous. His oration was on " The Influence of 
Opinion." I need not add that he acquitted himself 
well, for I have already told you enough to enable 
you to anticipate that fact. The fame of that ora- 
tion was widely spread, and is not forgotten to this 
day by his schoolmates, with whom I have had the 
pleasure of conversing. One of the old papers I 
have read, modestly says : — " A numerous audience 
manifested a high degree of satisfaction at the genius 
displayed," and that " elegance of composition and 
propriety of delivery distinguished the performance." 
On the 26th day of August, 1801, at 11|- o'clock, 
A. M.,the Board of Trustees and Executive Author- 
ity, gentlemen of literary character, candidates for 
the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, and members of the 
Institution, walked in procession from the President's 
to the Meeting House. There the honors were con- 



254 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

ferred, and Mr. Webster and his classmates took 
leave of each other and of the President, the profes- 
sors and tutors of the College then separated, each 
one to pursue his own path for " weal or wo." No 
student ever left College with more blessings on his 
head. His future eminence was distinctly foretold 
by all the careful observers of men ; and the result 
has excelled the most sanguine of his most partial 
friends. 

Yours truly. 



MR. WEBSTER IS THE PRINCIPAL OF TUE FRYEBURG ACADEMY HE 

STUDIES LAW WITH THOMAS W. THOMPSON. 

Elms Farm, N. H., Sept. — , 1849. 
In January, after Mr. Webster left college, he 
went to Fryeburg, in the State of Maine, to take 
charge of an academy, for which he was proposed or 
recommended by Rev. Dr. John Smith, Professor of 
Greek, Hebrew, and the Oriental languages. What- 
ever he said was high authority. This Dr. Smith 
(who was Mr. Webster's ardent friend.) published the 
New Hampshire Latin Grammar, "an edition of Ci- 
cero's Orations in Latin, with Notes," and a "Hebrew 
Grammar, designed to facilitate the study of the 
Scriptures." He was an eminent scholar. He, too, 
was one of those '■'•who taught that boy.'''' As all 
feel an interest in knowing something about those who 
participated in shaping the mind of Mr. Webster, I 
say something of each of them as I proceed. His 
taking charge of this Academy was an important step 



PRINCIPAL OF FRYEBURG ACADEMY. 255 

in climbing the hill of Fame. At Dartmouth Col- 
lege, it was a principle instilled into the mind of every 
student — and the same idea existed throughout the 
State — that there was no occupation, no profession, 
more honorable than that of instructing the youth of 
the country. All classes combined to weave chaplets 
for, and to award due honors to, the meritorious teach- 
er of an academy or a school. None were permitted 
to attempt that business unless men of learning ; so 
that under such circumstances, it was a high calling. 
The graduates at Dartmouth were early distinguished 
in this respect for the good they did, not only to the 
rising generation, but to themselves. I have just 
read a discourse on this subject, delivered by Na- 
thaniel Bouton in 1833. Among other things he 
says : 

'•' On the triple foundation of the learned lan- 
guages, mathematics, and moral and intellectual phi- 
losophy, the sons of Dartmouth build high and 
enduring superstructions of personal fame and public 
usefulness. As- citizens of New Hampshire, we owe 
much to the influence of this College, in elevating the 
character of our primary schools and academies, and 
in promoting education through our country. From 
its first establishment, about three-fourths of all the 
students have taught schools during some portion of 
each year. For five years past the average number 
of students has been one hundred and fifty-five, of 
whom one hundred and five have been teachers, 
ordinarily for a term of three months. Within the 
last two years the number of students has been one 
hundred and seventy ; of whom three-fourths have 



256 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

been teachers. More graduates from this College 
are now teaching," said he, "in New England, in the 
Southern States, and particularly in the valley of the 
Mississippi, than from any other College that is 
known." 

An idea prevailed, that teaching was most salu- 
tary in its influence on the mind of the teacher. It 
aroused the recollections, and fixed on the memory 
more firmly, what the teacher had striven to learn. 
It enabled the graduate to see, by a little practice, 
where the web of his learning was most weak ; and 
in the outset to remedy the defect. The most emi- 
nent men in New England, forty years ago, acted on 
this idea ; and the result is, that this section of the 
United States is in advance of all others in solid 
education. New Hampshire is excelled only by 
Massachusetts and Connecticut; and those States 
are perhaps in advance of the rest of the world ; that 
is, there are more educated men in proportion to the 
whole number of the people. Hearing of young Mr. 
Webster at Dartmouth, through Mr. Smith and 
others, the Trustees of the Fryeburg Academy, then 
recently founded, appointed him the principal of 
their Seminary, and he accepted the place. He never 
had occasion to regret it. 

Fryeburg is a beautiful town in Oxford County, 
in the State of Maine. It consists of barren hills 
and fertile valleys. The intervening lands are of the 
richest kind. The hills are lofty and romantic. 
The principal village is situated on a plain, surround- 
ed by those hills ; and is watered by the river Saco. 
Although the township is but six miles square, yet, 



PRINCIPAL OF FRYEBURG ACADEMY. 257 

that beautiful river in its fantastic mcanderings, runs 
a distance of more than thirty miles, in passing from 
one boundary to the other. More bewitching scenery 
is seldom found in this land of beautiful scenes. For 
ages past, that town, the olden name of which was 
Pequaivket^ had been occupied by the Indians, and 
imj^roved by their successors ; the earliest inhabit- 
ants of New England. At a short distance from 
the village, is " Lovewell's Pond," a beautiful sheet 
of water, to which Mr. Webster often resorted with 
his fishing tackle for amusement and healthful recre- 
ation. He was then nineteen years old. On the 
afternoons of Wednesdays and Saturdays, he was 
often seen alone in his boat, floating on the surface 
of that water, which was so transparent, that he 
apj^eared to be suspended between earth and sky — 
angling among the smaller finny tribe,- as the sage of 
Marshfield is now often seen in his yacht on the more 
turbulent waters of the ocean, angling for codfish and 
halibut. This amusement was then, as it now is, — 
his repose from study and deep thought, 

" Lovewell's Pond" was made famous by " Love- 
well's fight." Capt. John Lovewell, as long ago as 
1725, with thirty-four men, fought a famous Indian 
named Paugus, at the head of eighty savages, on the 
shores of this beautiful pond. Both parties entered 
the combat determined to conquer or die. They 
fought till both Lovewell and Paugus were slain. 
Sixty of the Indians, and all but nine of the whites, 
" bit the dust." Finally, the remaining twenty sava- 
ges 



fled, leaving: nine of Lovewell's men victors of 



the field. This scene is visited with interest by all, 



258 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

wlietlier travellers or sojourners, who liave ever heard 
the story. It is, indeed, an interesting spot. Mr. 
Webster occupied his place at that academy until the 
following September, nine months. During this period, 
in the faithful discharge of his duties, he passed in 
review his studies at College, clinched every nail, and 
supjDlied every defect. While there, he also enjoyed 
the pleasures of an agreeable and intelligent society. 
Among his associates, he included several well-bred 
ladies and gentlemen. There was one, Rev. Wm. 
Fessenden, a man of great learning and distinguished 
piety, for whom Mr. Webster had a particular regard. 
His house was open to him at all times. He had a 
fine library, to the use of which the youthful philoso- 
pher was invited ; and that great and good man was 
never so happy as when he had Mr. Webster with 
him. He took infinite pleasure in conversing with a 
youthful and vigorous mind, fresh from College, and 
he imparted to him all that could be given from his 
best experience, and the fruit of his observations 
during scores of years. The great truths of philo- 
sophy and religion were themes on which they dwelt 
with mutual satisfaction. When we remember the 
strong adherence of Mr. Webster's father to reli- 
gious principles and practices, the influence of Rev. 
Mr. Wood, and Rev. Dr. Smith, of Dartmouth Col- 
lege, his early and devoted friends, and afterwards 
the friendship of Mr. Fessenden, we can readily ac- 
count for the confident opinions which are entertained 
by Mr. Webster on religious subjects, and which have 
always been visible in every thing he has said and 
done. 



STUDIES LAW. 259 



While Mr. Webster resided at Fryeburg he found 
he could do more than was set down for him to do as 
the Principal of the Academy. The office of Assist- 
ant Register in that place being vacant he was chosen 
to discharge the duties. He occupied several hours 
of each twenty-four in recording deeds, for which he 
received considerable money, and all of which he ap- 
propriated to the defraying of the expenses of his 
brother Ezekiel at College. At the close of the 
duties which devolved upon him, and which he had so 
well performed, the appointing power felt called on to 
pass resolutions and give him some testimonial as to 
the manner in which he had done what he had under- 
taken. 

The time had now come when Mr. Webster was 
to prepare himself more thoroughly and particularly 
(though he little thought then of the extent) to be 
the teacher of nations. His plans for self-improve- 
ment would not permit him to spend any more time 
in teaching others the simple rudiments of learning. 
He therefore resigned his place at Fryeburg, grateful 
for the benefits it had conferred on him personally, 
and returned to Elms Farm. He entered the office 
of his friend and neighbor, Thomas W. Thompson, as 
a student at law, in which office he had formerly sat 
a little barefooted boy, to tell the clients who called, 
where Mr. Thompson had gone, and when he would 
return. 

At this time, there were only eighty lawyers prac- 
tising at the Superior and Inferior Courts, in the 
whole State. Mr. Thompson was one in good stand- 
ing among them. I will here speak briefly of him. 



260 MEMORIALS OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 

He was born in Boston, and was the son of Deacon 
Thompson, an Englishman. His mother was a Scotch- 
woman. While he was 3'Oung, his father removed 
(taking his son with him) to Newburyport. He was 
fitted for College by Samuel Moody, and graduated 
at Cambridge in 1786. At the time of the " Shay's 
E-ebellion," he entered the arm)'^ as an aid to General 
Lincoln, and served throughout the campaign during 
a severe winter, and until the insurrection was quelled. 
He first studied Theology to qualify himself for the 
pulpit. He was, however, appointed a Tutor in Col- 
lege, at Cambridge, and was a favorite among the 
students, owing to the suavity of his manners, and 
his natural, easy, and unaffected politeness. After 
this he studied law at Newburyport with Theophilus 
Parsons, named " the Giant of the Law." He was 
admitted to the Bar, and opened an office near the 
South Meeting House, in Salisbury ; and in about a 
year afterwards, he removed to this place, and boarded 
with Mr. Webster's father. In due time, he bought 
a house for himself He had an extensive and lucra- 
tive practice. He made himself rich by his profes- 
sion. He was one of the Trustees of Dartmouth Col- 
lege at the time Mr. Webster graduated, and con- 
tinued to be an active and efficient member of the 
Board till his death. From 1805 to 1807, he was a 
Representative in Congress. He was several times 
a member of the Legislature of his State, and was 
Speaker of the House of Kepresentatives when the 
excitement of party politics was high ; but his oppo- 
nents and every member willingly bore testimony to 
his candor, his ability and impartiality in the dis- 



A NARROW ESCAPE. 261 

charge of his duties. He was also a Senator in Con- 
gress from this State, and acquitted himself with 
honor. In 1809 he removed from this place to Con- 
cord, the seat of Government. 

In August, 1819, he set out for Quebec, and was 
on board the steamboat Phanix^ from Burlington on 
the route to Canada, when, at midnight it took fire. 
The vessel was all in flames, the passengers were all 
escaping in small boats, and he was still asleep, — 
waking, he saw his situation, jumped into the last 
boat, already filled to sinking, and was the last person 
who escaped. The terrors and fatigues of that dread- 
ful night made him sick, and, finally, put an end to 
his life. He was a fine scholar and accomplished 
gentleman, and highly respected in this State. Such 
is the man with whom Mr. Webster commenced the 

study of the law. 

Yours truly. 



END OF VOL. I. 



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